Korean songstreee Lee Hyo-ri (left) and musician Jung Jae-hyung (right) emcee at the 2011 College Musicians Festival held at the Andong National University Northern Gyeongsang province, South Korea, on November 24, 2011. [MBC]

While a slew of TV audition programs are flooding in Korea and abroad, the country's oldest TV audition show has decided to give itself a change by inviting talents from abroad.

The show's producer and broadcaster MBC has confirmed earlier that the 2012 College Musicians Festival [CMF] will open a special entry for foreign college students that seek opportunities to become true musicians.

As the first step of grabbing the special opportunity, contestants are required to upload their video of performing to self-composed and written songs on YouTube between July 9 and September 3. The audition will only allow five teams or contestants to get in the final round, which will be held at an outdoor concert hall and broadcasted in live in September.

Despite the officials' attempt to give a new look to the show by allowing foreign contestants to sign up for applications, questions remain if this will give a boost to the long-running program that has been losing its popularity little by little every year.

During the last three to four years, the birth of other audition programs including Mnet's "Superstar K" have threatened the survival of the CMF. Their big prize money and trendy young stars frequently making guest appearances are a few of the factors how the newly born audition shows attracted more talented participants and viewers.

Meanwhile, the fourth season of "Superstar K" is scheduled to air on August 17, with a bigger prize money of 500 million won [about 444,000 USD dollars] and a fancy SUV prepared for all top four contestants.

Also, SBS' "K-POP STAR - Season 2" is gearing up to hold its second preliminaries at Seoul's Jamsil Sports Complex on August 17 to 19.

Into its 36th year, the annual event is one of the most time-honored music festivals in Korea that has debuted lots of named musicians, such as solo artist Kim Dong-ryul, music producer Kolleen Park, and trot queen Jang Yun-jeong.


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10 아시아 Reporter : Lee Hye Ji hjlee@
10 아시아 Editor : Monica Suk monicasuk@
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