ABU Radio Song Festival | |
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Generic logo used for the ABU Radio Song Festivals.
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Genre | Song festival |
Created by | Marcel Bezençon |
No. of episodes | 2 festivals |
Production company(s) | Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union |
Distributor | Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union |
Release | |
Picture format |
576i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
Original release | 11 October 2012 | – present
External links | |
Official website | www |
The ABU Radio Song Festival is a biennial song competition, organised by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), and is based on the Eurovision Song Contest. The format consists of an non-televised semi-final and grand final which is broadcast.
Participating countries which have full or additional full ABU membership are invited to submit a song from an act that is unsigned to any record label. These entries are listened to by a panel of jury members, who select fifteen to proceed towards the radio festival final, were another panel of judges determining the top-5 prize winners. The grand final may be broadcast live via radio and television, or as a delayed live recorded broadcast for national broadcasters who may wish to add subtitles in their native languages.
The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) had already run an international song contest for its members inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest in 1985 – 1987, called the ABU Popular Song Contest, with 14 countries of the Asia-Pacific region competing. The show had a similar concept to the current radio song festival with winners being chosen by a professional jury. South Korea, New Zealand and Australia celebrated victories in this competition. In 1989 – 1991 ABU co-produced the ABU Golden Kite World Song Festival in Malaysia with participation of Asia-Pacific countries, as well as Yugoslavia and Finland.
Shortly before launching the ABU Song Festival, the ABU had been considering the possibility to organize the ABU ASEAN TV Song Festival in Thailand. Historically, ASEAN song contests had been organized in periods between 1981 and 1997, however since 2011 the ASEAN Festival had been organized between local Radio stations as Bintang Radio ASEAN. The ABU outlined a plan about a "television song festival" based on the style of the Eurovision Song Contest following the cancellation of Our Sound. Kenny Kihyung Bae, chosen to the project manager, attended Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan to learn more about the contest before putting it to work.