The ABU TV Song Festival is an annual non-competitive gala that showcases songs or instrumentals by musicians across

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, organised by the

Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU or APBU), formed in 1964, is a non-profit, professional association of broadcasting organisations. It currently has over 287 members in 57 countries and regions, reaching a potential audience of about 3 bil ...

(ABU). Participating countries which have full or additional full ABU membership are invited to submit a

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...

to be performed in front of a live

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), o ...

. It is live recorded so that each of the national broadcasters may add

subtitles Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informa ...

in their respective

Asian languages A wide variety of languages are spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Tu ...

. In contrast to the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

in Europe, which has numerous rules and obligations as well as a

voting system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections m ...

to determine a specific "winner", the television festival is a non-competitive, cordial musical gala presentation, with the intention to recognise the musical talent of Asian musicians across Asia.

Development

The

(ABU) had already run an international song contest for its members inspired by the

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 South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

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 Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...

and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

. 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 ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, milita ...

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

following the cancellation of ''Our Sound''. Kenny Kihyung Bae, chosen to the project manager, attended

Eurovision Song Contest 2012 The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was the 57th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, following the country's victory at the with the song " Running Scared" by the duo Ell & Nikki. It was the first time Azerb ...

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world an ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

to learn more about the contest before putting it to work. In November 2011, the ABU announced that they would organize its own TV and Radio Song Festivals to take place in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

, the South Korean capital, in time with 49th General Assembly in October 2012. The name ''Asiavision Song Contest'' was initially mentioned as a possibility, but they were later officially titled ''ABU TV Song Festival'' and ''

ABU Radio Song Festival The ABU Radio Song Festival is a biennial non-competitive gala that showcases songs or instrumentals by musicians across Asia, organised by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), and is based on the Eurovision Song Contest. The format consist ...

''. According to the ABU, the deadline for participation applications for ABU TV Song Festival 2012 was 18 May 2012.

Format

The ABU TV Song Festival is a concert performance for professional musicians, who according to the organiser are well known in their country of origin. The event is not meant to be competitive. The festival will be recorded and is meant to be broadcast by participating ABU members first. Non-participating ABU members and non-ABU member broadcasters will be allowed to broadcast the festival for a fee at a later stage.abu.org.my
1st ABU TV Song Festival - General Guidelines
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

-Datei)abu.org.my
ABU TV Song Festival available for broadcast
14. September 2012 Every musician will be selected by a national broadcaster being member of the ABU. The participants perform during the general assembly of the ABU.abu2012seoul.com

At a press conference held on 18 July 2013 it was announced that

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

were submitting a bid to host the

ABU TV Song Festival 2015 The ABU TV Song Festival 2015 was the fourth annual edition of the ABU TV Song Festivals. The event, which is non-competitive, took place in Istanbul, Turkey and coinciding with the 52nd General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union ...

. In recent editions, the TV Festival has been held in the host city of the ABU General Assembly, with

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

playing host to such assembly in 2015. If the bid were to be successful it would be the first time that the TV Festival has taken place away from the host country of the General Assembly. However, it was announced in August 2014 that Indonesia were making plans to host the

ABU TV Song Festival 2016 The ABU TV Song Festival 2016 was the fifth annual edition of the ABU TV Song Festivals. The event, which is non-competitive, took place in Bali Nusa Dua Convention Centre, Bali, Indonesia, on 22 October 2016. Fourteen countries have confirmed ...

instead.

's debut at the 2014 Festival has led to speculation that they are hosting the 2015 alongside the ABU General Assembly which was scheduled to take place in Istanbul. It was further confirmed in October 2014 that Turkey were indeed the hosts of the 2015 festival, which is scheduled to take place in Istanbul sometime in October 2015.

Participation

Participation in the contest is open to members of the

. ;Table key

Hosting

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

ABU Official website
{{ABU TV Song Festival Song contests Asian music 2012 establishments in Asia Music festivals established in 2012