On Saturday 14 November, the Eurovision Song Contest Asia brings the show into a new continent, new cultures and a whole new era. But is Eurovision ready to conquer the world and win new fans while the Contest deals with its own challenges in Europe?
In this analysis, James Stephenson tells the story behind:
- How Eurovision Asia came to be;
- The ambitions of the main players involved
- And whether Eurovision can win new hearts in Asia – or can only repeat old mistakes
The heart knows what it wants.
This week, Eurovision’s heart is going somewhere new – Asia. After years of speculation, months of build-up and reports of eleventh hour budget cuts and concerns over the production making it over the line, the Eurovision Song Contest Asia 2026 is going ahead. The artists, technical staff, and now the media are all in Bangkok, Thailand, ready to plant a Song Contest-shaped flag in a brand-new continent.
But why Asia? And why now?
To an outsider, it might look like Eurovision has gotten distracted. With the main show in Europe more likely to turn up in the political pages of the newspaper than the entertainment section, it does seem like surprising timing for Eurovision to set up a new Contest abroad. It’s certainly drawn curiosity and intrigue from the mainstream. Whether that becomes genuine interest from fans remains to be seen.
But the truth is that Eurovision Asia is far from the Contest’s first attempt to expand. It’s being positioned as a next step in growing its international reach. It’s not being managed by show organisers the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) centrally, but by another company whose founder dreams of a “world final” of multiple Eurovision shows across the globe.
They’ve already tried a different format in a different continent – and been met with disinterest and disappointment. Now, the world’s biggest song contest, and the company charged with making it even bigger, has another chance to prove that its label isn’t just for show.
Make no mistake – it’s Eurovision Asia this weekend, but it’s really Eurovision vs The World. And to win Asia’s heart, and the success, viewing figures and revenue that come with that, this show’s organising team will have to overcome as many challenges as Scott Pilgrim did to get with Ramona Flowers in Edgar Wright’s cult classic film. They won’t be as attractive as Chris Evans, but they’ll be as threatening – and that’s on top of reports detailing how challenging just getting this show ready to air appears to have been.
So, here’s your guide to Eurovision Asia: how we got here, who’s involved, what it means for Eurovision as a whole, and whether its foray into Asia can win a new fanbase over. Without going something like this.
I can answer most of those questions. The last one is for the people making it to decide.
The First Attempt
The origins of the Eurovision Song Contest Asia lie, perhaps ironically, in Sweden.
In 2019, Christer Björkman announced that he and a group of other Swedish TV producers had acquired the rights to develop a version of Eurovision for…the United States. Joining forces with Christer were Anders Lenhoff, who is said to have suggested the idea to Björkman while they were producing the 2017 Contest in Kyiv, and Peter Settman.
In parallel, an American TV producer called Ben Silverman had thought the Eurovision format might be a solution for his network, NBC, in trying to take on the behemoth that was Fox’s American Idol as early as 2006. When he got wind of the Swedes obtaining the rights, he called them and insisted he come on board.
Björkman, Settman and Lenhoff created a new company, American Song Contest Incorporated, and they entered a co-production deal with Silverman’s own label Propagate. By 2021, the EBU announced in a press release that they would produce the American Song Contest for NBC – a huge move into a country that mainly knew Eurovision through a Will Ferrell movie for Netflix.
To make the show friendlier to an American audience, though, NBC demanded changes to Eurovision’s tried and tested format. Rather than semi-finals and a final in one week, there would be five heats, two semi-finals, and then a final across eight weeks. No pre-release of songs, no instant voting to accommodate different viewing times on the East and West Coasts, and a week’s wait for viewers to see who qualified from each show. Not even Michael Bolton could solve those problems.
That meant the resulting show only felt like Eurovision in spirit – and, at worst, a pale imitation. NBC didn’t win anything like the ratings they wanted. With a single series order being all they were prepared to make on the show, it was quickly cancelled.
A “World Final”
Björkman and his team were disappointed – but undeterred. In 2025, I got to speak to him for over an hour as part of my Eurovision Uncovered series here on ESC Insight. He told me that he felt the American Song Contest failed for many reasons, including NBC’s lack of commitment to the format long-term, and the fact that the Eurovision format had been scrapped in favour of something more favourable to reality TV.
His dream, as he confided in me, was to see Eurovision shows in all corners of the globe, with the champions squaring off in a “world final” someday.
Together with Lenhoff and Settman, he set out to achieve it. They changed the name of the company he helped to create to bring Eurovision to the USA to Voxovation, holding the exclusive worldwide rights to license the Eurovision brand and operate Contests in other markets on the EBU’s behalf. Conversations happened with broadcasters in multiple markets – years came and went. But as 2025 drew to a close, Christer confirmed to me that Eurovision Asia was in “intensive preparations”.
Those preparations became reality in March, when Eurovision Asia was officially announced. During a press conference at this year’s Contest in Vienna, Austria, Björkman and Settman were centre-stage for Voxovation as they took questions from journalists on Eurovision Asia – including on its name (upon the request of its broadcasters), format, and my own question of whether it could be a sandbox to test things for Eurovision in Europe. I’ll get back to that.
Christer and Peter announce Eurovision Asia in Vienna (Robin Lorentz Allard)
Unlike last time, this show would follow the format established in Europe almost to the letter. It would seek multi-year contracts to ensure the show’s longevity. And, according to the EBU’s Head of Communications Dave Goodman, the new Asian competition would help to make its European counterpart financially “sustainable for the future”.
Just this week, Björkman reaffirmed that ambition to Sveriges Radio. He claimed that if Eurovision Asia is a success, Latin America will get its own localised Contest next. And, with his dream coming closer into view, his and Voxovation’s goal is to host a global World Championship…within five years.
Hearing that, you’d think the Contest isn’t just ready to expand – but ready for world domination.
Growing Pains
So, everything looked set for the Eurovision heart to succeed in Asia – but the course of true love never does run smooth.
Almost as soon as the show was announced and promoted during the Grand Final in Vienna, Eurovision Asia’s development wasn’t without incident. Eleven broadcasters signed up from across Asia, ranging from musical juggernauts South Korea to smaller nations like Bhutan – but discussions with China and Japan failed. In August, Peter Settman, Voxovation’s CEO, resigned suddenly and unexpectedly. And in October, a report released in October by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet painted a picture of a production in dire straits.
Their journalist Tobbe Ek claimed that the new Contest was “on the verge of bankruptcy”. With just weeks remaining until this weekend’s broadcast, the entire international production team was effectively fired and replaced by Media Vision, a local production company in Thailand. This was one cut among many, amounting to an existential $1m cost reduction. Community media website Eurovision World further claimed that the savings “prompted strong criticism” within the technical team over the EBU’s lack of support for the project. For his part, Eurovision’s Director, Martin Green said the EBU “are confident that the budget matches the level of ambition for the first Asian competition”.
While some criticised the EBU when this news emerged, the truth is they weren’t making the decision. This is because the EBU isn’t running Eurovision in Asia as they do in Europe – Voxovation is. In this business model, Voxovation licenses the Eurovision brand from the EBU, and then operates the Contest itself – keeping control of the production, and of the profits.
Think of Voxovation as a company that operates trains. The owner of the tracks, in this case the EBU, sells you the right to operate your trains using them. In turn, the train company sets up its own business, buys the trains, operates the services, and keeps the profits of those operations. The track owners make their money by charging fees to the train operator to use their lines.
That means Voxovation is on the hook for the production costs of Eurovision Asia, as well as all of its national selection programmes. Those costs appear to have stretched them far beyond what’s comfortable.
Under New Management
In August, Voxovation’s financial position led to a change at the top. Aftonbladet reported that, following Settman’s resignation as CEO, RJ Phillips took majority control of the company. Phillips is a tech entrepreneur who served as an executive of the controversial website OnlyFans, and recently founded a new company you may have heard of if you’ve been following Eurovision Asia – Zoop.
Zoop is the Asian Contest’s title sponsor. It’s a social media app that has its roots in the crypto industry, allowing you to purchase NFT-style products and offering its own crypto token, $ZOOPcoin. According to the official brand language, the Eurovision Song Contest Asia is even ‘powered by Zoop’. But, in a legal sense, the Contest is organised by its founder as well, with any sponsorship income from Zoop going to Voxovation, thereby staying under his control. As the majority owner of Voxovation, Phillips now controls the rights the company has to the Eurovision format – and as majority shareholder, makes the highest returns on the investment.
When the EBU first gave Voxovation those rights, though, it was to producers who had long been associated with Eurovision. Christer Björkman had been the Head of Contest for multiple editions of the show, helping produce each song’s entries and even deciding the running order for the Grand Final as recently as 2025. It seems hard to believe the EBU would have given those rights to someone like Phillips given his lack of institutional knowledge of the Contest, let alone his business background. In the show’s terms and conditions, voters will be prompted to create a Zoop account while picking their favourites, with the hope of funnelling new users to Phillips’s social media platform.
With the sponsor becoming the owner, it raises questions as to how Eurovision Asia is being operated commercially. In a briefing call with select members of the Eurovision community media, ESC Insight spoke to Marcus Tang, the Executive Supervisor of the new Asian Contest, who was adamant that it would be far more commercially driven to suit the mentality of the region’s media market. In fact, he said Voxovation’s goal was to make money from this show – and lots of it.
But given the reported financial problems, and the takeover of the company by Zoop’s founder, Voxovation appear to have been naive about the environment they were entering. Although the show will certainly go ahead, ticket sales appear to have been slow. Not only that, the change in production team meant a complete change of stage for Eurovision Asia, with a very short turnaround time, not helped by leading international professionals being told they can stay home.
It’s hard to know what the production values of the show will be. It feels unlikely they will be at the standard fans have come to expect in Europe.
Winning Hearts (and Eyes)
The Eurovision Song Contest wants new fans to fall in love with it. It won’t measure that through hearts – but through eyes.
The European Contest reached 131 million viewers in 2026, 35 million down on the previous year in Basel, but still a massive number for any TV show. Despite the large populations of some of the competing countries in Asia – Bangladesh, for example, has more people living in it than any country in Europe – it’s bold to assume Eurovision Asia will get anything like a nine-figure audience in its first year. Perhaps Junior Eurovision, with its reach of 11 million viewers in 2026, is a more reasonable figure to aim for.
There are positive signs: in Vietnam, over two million watched as the country selected Tóc Tiên’s entry for the competition. But other viewing figures have been more difficult to come by. Not only that, the broadcasters competing at Eurovision Asia aren’t public service media organisations – they’re private, smaller in stature and competing in a much more saturated landscape. The show’s Executive Producer, Assaf Blecher, has said that countries like Japan and India may be interested in coming on board in the future. But this inaugural Contest will rely on the show’s larger participants, like Bangladesh and South Korea, to drive headline figures.
There are other hurdles, too. Eurovision expanded throughout its history as the continent became more integrated, with new countries joining as the Iron Curtain fell down and the Schengen zone became a reality for many. Author Dean Vuletic described the challenge succinctly when speaking to the Financial Times recently:
“Asia hasn’t had this same experience in an economic, political or cultural sense. Eurovision really did become a symbol of that integration…that is what is missing [in Asia]. It will be much more of a challenge to succeed in this environment.”
Voxovation and the EBU will also be hoping the Contest’s core fans make time for Asia. With an early afternoon start time in Europe, there’s definite potential to find a captive audience. But while the show will be streamed on YouTube, and nearby Australia will air the show on SBS2 despite a very late start time there, few European broadcasters have picked up the show. Israel, Poland, Germany and Bosnia & Herzegovina are the only countries where you can watch Eurovision Asia on TV. In Sweden, technically this show’s birthplace, it’ll only be broadcast on Sveriges Radio – not by SVT.
As of Tuesday 10 November, the 11 competing songs combined have been streamed 2,370,948 times on Spotify. According to ESC Charts on X, the Eurovision 2026 winner ‘Bangaranga’ was streamed more times in October alone. While there has been plenty of media interest in Eurovision’s expansion attempt, what’ll matter is if it can attract enough of an audience to make it sustainable and able to stand on its own feet.
When the Financial Times asked Assaf Blescher what he’d view as success for Eurovision Asia, he said the fact “it is happening” was enough.
I can’t disagree that it’s happening – but to succeed, I’d argue it needs to happen again.
A Contest for Asia – or for Eurovision?
Eurovision Asia does feel like a make or break moment. The Contest has already tried to expand once, and fallen short. Given the money invested and the hurdles overcome to reach this point, there’s a sense that it has to work. If it underperforms, Voxovation, and even the EBU, may not get another chance to try this.
But it’s not make or break for Asia. This is a region that doesn’t need Eurovision – it’s perfectly capable of creating its own huge international hits, from K-drama to anime, and that applies to music shows and competitions, too. There’s nothing preventing the broadcasters competing in this inaugural edition from making their own Song Contest. What Voxovation has said is that these companies wanted the strength of the Eurovision brand – that’s where this show got its name from.
But is the Eurovision Song Contest coming to Asia to serve them, or for them to serve it?
Remember when I mentioned that question I asked at the Eurovision Asia press conference? About this show being a sandbox for the European Contest? According to Aftonbladet, Eurovision Asia’s new voting system is a test for the main Eurovision show, with viewers forced to support a minimum of three countries using up to eight free votes. The new system appears to have increased security compared to the one used in recent ESC shows (and investigated by ESC Insight), and making people vote for multiple songs will theoretically reduce bloc voting. There’s also an option to purchase ten more votes, though, and dish them out however you like. There’ll be a piece on Friday analysing this in more detail.
It’s great to have the opportunity to test an idea like this. But the relationship between the Asian Contest and the European one it’s based on should be symbiotic – not subservient. There’s a danger that Eurovision Asia isn’t so much about giving Asian countries a chance to develop their own musical talent and music industry, as well as platforming their own unique culture on stage, as it is about Eurovision furthering its own identity into new markets.
Assaf Blecher said that Bhutan, this competition’s smallest entrant at just 800,000 inhabitants, was “very appreciative” of being asked to compete. But we should have a show that platforms these nations, rather than patronising them. That comment, in my opinion, gives the impression that countries of that size should be appreciating the EBU and Voxovation for bringing Eurovision to their doorstep. And I do worry that the songs that have found their way through to this Contest are more in line with what makes a good Eurovision song, rather than what makes a good Laotian, Cambodian or Nepalese one. Again, we’ll have an article that goes in depth about the songs competing on Saturday.
Eurovision has national finals that are authentic to the countries they are in – Sanremo, Melodifestivalen, Festival da Canção, I could go on. For Asia, Voxovation centrally produced almost all of those – while they certainly didn’t have the time those European shows had to establish themselves, they certainly lacked that authenticity.
Love Shine a Light
I also appreciate this Contest shouldn’t be made for me. I don’t want to state what makes a Song Contest work in a cultural landscape I have no experience with. But what I do think I can say is that Eurovision Asia should put the emphasis on the second word of its name – and not the first one.
My friend Jay has travelled from London to Bangkok this week to see Eurovision Asia for themselves. Being a Eurovision fan with Filipino heritage, this matters:
“Honestly, it’s a bit surreal. I’ve followed Eurovision for as long as I can remember, so being in Bangkok for the first ever Asian edition is a dream come true, especially getting to see my own country, the Philippines, on that stage.
It matters because Eurovision has always been about countries sharing their music and culture side by side, in front of the world. Asia has so much talent that most European fans have never heard of, and this contest could open doors for a lot of artists and fans who’ve only ever watched from the outside. Who knows? Maybe in 70 years time, Eurovision Asia will be on par with Eurovision Europe in terms of cultural significance.”
That’s what’s possible here. Eurovision Asia has the potential to have the same unifying impact in a new corner of the world, where love shines a light on new artists and new cultures for the world to see. It’s not just a chance to stand on the same footing as Europe, but apart from them too.
This brings me back to the EBU’s statement that Asia will help to financially support Eurovision’s main shows in May. Why can’t this show just support itself? If the question they’re asking with this show isn’t how to give Asian communities and cultural groups the chance to express themselves on a bigger, global stage where they can win new fans in their region and around the world, then they’ve got the wrong answer.
The Heart in the Right Place
At the end of Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Scott defeats all the evil exes. But for Ramona to accept him, he has to accept himself for all of his flaws.
Every show as big as Eurovision has flaws. How many, and how severe they are, is up to you. But if Eurovision Asia is going to fulfil its potential, and it has absolutely huge potential, then Voxovation can’t treat it as a single step on a much larger staircase, nor can the EBU treat it as a stepladder to prop up the Contest they already have.
Much like my thoughts on the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Malta last month, the problem is the same: if they want a show that appeals to Eurovision fans, they already have one. If they want a new show, they need to justify it to a new crowd.
Otherwise, Eurovision Asia risks not seeing the people who want to see it. Scott Pilgrim vs The World was based on a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, a Canadian artist and author of Korean descent. To see his work come to life on a grand scale, for a global audience, should have been an incredible highlight for him. But O’Malley wasn’t totally happy.
In 2013, despite being involved with the production of Edgar Wright’s film, he was asked about the lack of Asian representation within the finished product. His answer was definitive:
“Honestly, when I saw the Scott Pilgrim movie it was kind of appalling to see just how white it was — to not even really see myself represented on the screen”.
“I’ve sometimes joked that Scott Pilgrim is my fantasy of being a cute white indie rock boy…I guess I whitewashed myself out of my own story.”
If Eurovision is to become successful not just as a European export, but as the world’s favourite song contest, it needs to let the world create it with them. Because, if the Swedish TV producers, the tech entrepreneur whose start-up is legally registered in the Cayman Islands and the British Director of the Eurovision Song Contest were viewing this show as an opportunity for their own ends, we’d lose the centre of what this show should be about.
For Voxovation, Zoop and the EBU to win, they need to make Eurovision in Asia.
For Eurovision to win – and win the new fans that may find Eurovision and fall in love in the way we all did once – they need to make Eurovision for Asia.