Asia Bagus

Asia Bagus! was a star-search program created by Fuji Television spanning from 1992 until 2000 to promote young up-and-coming performing artists in Asia. The show broadcast once a week for 24 episodes from April to September throughout Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Taiwan (from 1994) and Thailand. The contestants featured in the program were twelve amateur singers between the age of 12 and 25, selected from 300 entries each month from the participating countries. Three singers from each country, selected from the auditions, were encouraged to sing in their native languages. The prevailing champion over three shows went on to compete in a monthly run-off, while grand championships were held once a year. The grand champion of each year will record a solo album while the winners for the monthly run-offs will record an album together. Former hosts include Tomoko Kadowaki from Japan and Najip Ali from Singapore. Singaporean Moses Lim also once co-hosted Asia Bagus in 1994 while 1993 champion Construction Sight duos Sheikh Haikel and Ashidiq Ghazali became the hosts for 1996. Another Japanese woman was once a co-host of the show. For the 1996 season, a new segment called Big Asia was added, where Najip Ali interviewed personalities from Asia.