ABU Song Festival 2025: All you need to know

Kyriakos Tsinivits
Sep 13, 2025
3 min read

Do you know much about the ABU Song Festival? Or is this the first time that you’re hearing about it? Then you must have a lot of questions!

We here at Aussievision have produced an overview explaining what the competition is all about.

So, what exactly is the ABU Song Festival?

The ABU TV Song Festival, aka the ABU Song Festival, is an annual non-competitive event that showcases songs or instrumentals by musicians across Asia, 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. It is live recorded so that each of the national broadcasters may add subtitles in their respective Asian languages.

The ABU TV Song Festival was held for the first time in 2012 with 11 countries making their debut, which included Australia. DJ, singer and songwriter Havana Brown was Australia's first representative. More about Australia later on.

This year the event has has been rebranded from the ABU TV Song Festival to the ABU Song Festival. This follows a discussion in 2024 to open the ABU TV Song Festival up to radio members, after the ABU Radio Song Festival was last held in 2019.

Is the format just like the Eurovision Song Contest?

The ABU Song Festival is not similar to Eurovision. The Eurovision Song Contest has many rules and obligations as well as a voting system to determine a winner. This festival is a non-competitive, cordial musical gala presentation, with the intention to recognise the musical talent of Asian musicians across Asia.

The ABU had already run an international song contest for its members inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest back in the 1980s called the ABU Popular Song Contest which had 14 countries of the Asia-Pacific region competing. The ABU Song Festival is also not similar to that contest either.

When is the next ABU Song Festival?

The 14th edition of the ABU Song Festival is set to take place on September 13, in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar at the Grand Tsonjin Boldog Statue. Tsonjin Boldog is the location of one of Mongolia’s most iconic structures, the Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue, which was opened in 2008.

At the heart of the Festival will be an one and a half hour concert “Festival Concert”.

Who will be competing?

The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union has announced that nine countries will be participating in the ABU Song Festival 2025. They are (including country, broadcaster, artist/musician and song title):

Bhutan (BBS): Pema Samdrup - The song of you
Hong Kong (TVB): Huang Bo - A Kind of Perseverance
India (DD): Savani Ravindra Ghangurde - Rang De
Japan (NHK): Ms.OOJA - Be…
South Korea (KBS): Kwon Eun Bi - Under Water
Macau (TDM): Elisa Chan - Eat or Sleep
Malaysia (RTM): Nadeera - BUKAN LAGI KITA
Mongolia (MNB): The HU - Wolf Totem
Türkiye (TRT): Orhan Çakmak - Türkiyem

Turkmenistan was due to be represented by Rustem Hallyyev with Bady Sabany görýärin but has been withdrawn from the official line up. This is the first time since 2021 that Turkmenistan has participated.

Bhutan and Mongolia will be making their debut this year. China, Indonesia and Uzbekistan who participated in 2024 withdrew from this year's festival. Vietnam had stated its intention to participate but was not included in the official list of 2025 participants.

What about Australia?

Australia is not competing at this year's festival , but we have made an appearance on four occasions. Australia was able to take part through national broadcasters SBS and ABC and made it's debut during the inaugural year of the festival itself back in 2012.

Eurovision royalty Dami Im also took part back in festival representing Australia a couple years before she represented Australia at Eurovision 2016.

Here are all the participants, song titles and years Australia has participated in:

Havana Brown - We Run the Night (2012)
Justice Crew - Boom Boom / Everybody mashup (2013)
Dami Im - Living Dangerously (2014)
Dan Sultan - Cul-de-sac (2019)

There has been no news or statements as to whether Australia will take part in the festival in the near future.

Where can I watch it?

The ABU Song Festival 2025 is set to be broadcast live between 18:00 and 20:00 local time on Saturday, September 13 (Asian time). A select number of broadcasters will be showcasing the competition, some live and some by delayed telecast.

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