The Intervision Song Contest (ISC) is an international song competition originally organised by the International Radio and Television Organisation (OIRT) and broadcast live via the Intervision network. Launched in 1965 as the Eastern Bloc equivalent to the Eurovision Song Contest, its first phase was staged in various cities across Czechoslovakia until 1968. From 1977 to 1980, the contest was held at Sopot's Forest Opera in Poland, followed by a one-off revival in Sochi in 2008. After a lengthy hiatus, the contest was relaunched in 2025 under an annual rotating-host model, with each edition staged in a different country.
The ISC replaced the long-running Sopot International Song Festival (Sopot ISF), which had been held in Sopot since 1961, when it moved there for its second phase from 1977 to 1980. In 1981 the unified ISC/Sopot ISF was cancelled because of the rise of the independent trade union movement, Solidarity, which was judged by other Eastern bloc communist governments to be "counter-revolutionary". In 1984, Polish broadcaster TVP revived the Sopot ISF under its original name.
In 2008, a one-off revival contest took place in Sochi, as an attempt to revive the contest, though subsequent editions planned in both 2014 and 2015 did not materialise. After the Russian broadcasters withdrew from the European Broadcasting Union upon being excluded from the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, another revival was announced by the Russian Ministry of Culture in 2023, with Russian president Vladimir Putin signing a decree for it to be held in Moscow. Intervision 2025 was held on 20 September at the Live Arena in Novoivanovskoye, Moscow. The next edition is scheduled to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2026, though the Iran war has called it into question.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
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