Sietse Bakker, Eurovision’s event supervisor, insisted any growth beyond Europe’s borders would be an ‘organic development’.
He said: “The song contest has always organically grown, sometimes a little faster than Europe, sometimes a little slower. But I think it’s really whether the broadcasters in the countries outside of Europe are interested in this song contest – only then can the song contest grow beyond the borders it has now. Now we have the one-time participation of Australia and we see increasing interest from Canada and China and if that interest grows who knows in a couple of years we would have a world song contest. But I don’t think we can enforce that but if it should happen it will be an organic development.”
He said: “The song contest has always organically grown, sometimes a little faster than Europe, sometimes a little slower. But I think it’s really whether the broadcasters in the countries outside of Europe are interested in this song contest – only then can the song contest grow beyond the borders it has now. Now we have the one-time participation of Australia and we see increasing interest from Canada and China and if that interest grows who knows in a couple of years we would have a world song contest. But I don’t think we can enforce that but if it should happen it will be an organic development.”