Updated March 23rd, 2020 at 11:56 IST

Eurovision looks for alternatives as contest gets cancelled due to COVID-19

The organizers of Eurovision want to look for an alternative to their cancelled event. It was announced on March 18 that the song contest was cancelled.

Reported by: Shubham Bose
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The organisers of Eurovision want to look for an alternative to their cancelled event. It was announced on March 18 that the song contest Eurovision would be cancelled amidst the deadly coronavirus outbreak. According to reports, the European Broadcasting Union claimed that they were exploring other possible programs but not a contest.

In search of a replacement

The Eurovision song contest is one of the world’s largest television events. It was scheduled to take place in the Dutch city of Rotterdam in May. The contest began in 1965 and since then has been held annually. As per reports, this year’s event was expected to cater to 200 million viewers and have a live audience of tens of thousands for the final on May 16.

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As per reports. The European Broadcasting Union in a statement said that they were aware of exactly how much the Eurovision song contest will be missed. The alternative programming, they are looking at is supposed to honour the songs that were chosen for Eurovision 2020 and to help unite and entertain audiences around Europe dunging these challenging times.

Each year, the Eurovision contest features live music from each participating country, recent editions of the contest have featured more than 50 musical numbers. Spanning beyond Europe to Israel and Australia. The competition is set to return in the year 2021 and countries could decide to listen to the same artists they were planning to in 2020 but they will have to put forward new songs because the songs chosen for 2020 will not be allowed to run in the competition in 2021.

Eurovision that has been running continuously from 1956 is the world’s longest-running annual international television contest and one of the world’s longest-running television programs. It is also one of the world’s most-watched non-sporting events, attracting audiences between 100 to 600 million.

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Published March 23rd, 2020 at 11:56 IST