Greg Lipstone Joins American Song Contest Inc. As President & Chief Operating Officer As Company Eyes Expansion

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Former Propagate President Greg Lipstone has been appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of American Song Contest Inc., one of the companies behind NBC’s upcoming music reality competition series of the same name, which premieres March 21.Following the blueprint of the Eurovision Song Contest and inspired by its spectacle and production elements, the nine-week series, hosted by Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg and produced by Propagate Content and Universal TV Alternative Studio, features artists going head to head in state-to-state weekly competitions, leading to semi-finals and a March Madness-style Grand Final.In the newly created role, Lipstone’s focus will be to develop and grow the Eurovision Song Contest brand globally.

Domestically, that involves creating auxiliary businesses around the American Song Contest reality series, including digital commerce.

Based in ASC, Inc.’s home base in Los Angeles, Lipstone also will work on the brand’s international expansion, including launching local versions of the show in territories that are not covered by the Eurovision Song Contest. (While Eurovision is known as an European event, its participants also include countries like Israel, Morocco and Australia.)Drawing on Eurovision’s origins as a show that was created to help bring Europe together after the war, the feeling is that the world has gone through so much turmoil in recent history, including the pandemic and the current invasion of Ukraine, that it may be a good time to launch a similar initiative in other parts of the world.Ukraine is a two-time winner of Eurovision, including in 2016 for Jamala’s haunting “1944,” about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet regime.