ABU Song Festivals | |
---|---|
Genre | Song Festivals |
Created by | Marcel Bezençon |
Production company(s) | Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union |
Distributor | Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union |
Release | |
Picture format |
576i (SDTV) (2012-present) 1080i (HDTV) (2012-present) |
Original release | 14 October 2012 | – present
External links | |
Official website |
ABU Song Festivals are annual song competitions based on the Eurovision Song Contest. The format consists of two shows, a Radio Song Festival and TV Song Festival, organised by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU).
Participating countries which have full or additional full ABU membership are invited to submit a song to be performed in front of a live audience. The radio festival is a competitive show with a panel of judges determining the top-5 prize winners, and is broadcast via live radio. The television festival which is a non-competitive, musical gala presentation, is live recorded so that each of the national broadcasters may add subtitles in their native languages.
In 2008, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) proposed a partnership with ABU on the establishment of an Asiavision Song Contest, however these talks didn't produce any result, and in September 2008 it was announced that the Eurovision Song Contest format for Asian production had been sold to a private company from Singapore, Asiavision Pte. Ltd. The original name intended for that event was Asiavision Song Contest, but it was later changed to Our Sound - The Asia-Pacific Song Contest following a request from the ABU, who uses the Asiavision name for their news exchange service. Initially, the contest (which was supposed to be a two program live broadcast TV show with public voting) was set to premiere in 2009, but it was later rescheduled for March 2010 in Macao and then for November 2010 in Mumbai, at the end being postponed indefinitely "due to the ongoing issues between the organizers and EBU". As of now, it is still uncertain if there will ever be such a contest.