Star Academy

Location of different versions of Star Academy

Star Academy is a highly successful television show format produced by Endemol, that has been broadcasted in over 50 countries. It is a pop music talent contest with viewer voting and reality show elements.

Format

There are many versions of the Star Academy show, each country having its own slight variations, but the basic concept remains the same: contestants live in a boarding-school called "The Academy", managed by a director, and various teachers coach them in several artistic disciplines. The participants are filmed with hidden cameras throughout the day and night (an idea borrowed from another of Endemol's major reality shows Big Brother). Once a week, the contestants have to face a prime time show, where they sing the song they've prepared during the week before, as well as recapping their trials and tribulations at The Academy from the past week. The live show will often feature special guest stars, with whom some of the contestants have the opportunity to sing. Based on the judges' verdicts and viewer voting, the weakest contestant is dropped. The eventual winner is awarded a record deal, or similar prize.

History

The Star Academy concept belongs to the Spanish production company Gestmusic, a Spanish branch of Endemol. The first country to broadcast the format, however, was France on October 20th, 2001. Two days later, Operación Triunfo, as the show is called in Spanish speaking countries, went on the air in Spain.

From then on the Star Academy phenomenon began to spread in an unstoppable way, being impelled by the sweeping success of the contest in major media markets like France or Russia.

Nowadays, Star Academy is the second most expanded reality show, just behind Big Brother, and has reached markets as different as India, Arab World and United States, becoming the first Spanish format ever acquired by these countries.

Star Academy around the world

Region	Local name	Channel	Official website	Winner
Africa Template:Ref 1	Project Fame	M-Net	Website	Lindiwe Alam (Zambia)
Arab WorldTemplate:Ref 4	Star Academy Al Academia	LBC	Website	Mohamed Attia Hisham Abdulrahman Joseph Attieh
Argentina	Operación Triunfo	Telefe	Website	Claudio Basso José García Benjamín Rosales
Belgium	Star Academy	Kanaal Twee (Dutch) RTL-TVI (French)	Website	Katerine Agvoustakis (Dutch) Mélanie Martin's (French)
Brazil	Fama	Globo	Website	Vanessa Jackson Marcus Vinícius Tiago Silva Fabio Souza
Bulgaria	Star Academy	NTV	Website	Marin Yonchev Upcoming season
Canada	Star Académie	TVA	Website	Wilfred Le Bouthillier Stéphanie Lapointe Marc-André Fortin
Chile	Operación Triunfo	Mega	Website	Mónica Rodríguez
East AfricaTemplate:Ref 2	Tusker Project Fame	NTV (Kenya) Channel 10 (Tanzania) UBC (Uganda)	Website	Valerie Kimani
France	Star Academy	TF1	Website	Jenifer Bartoli Nolwenn Leroy Elodie Frégé Grégory Lemarchal Magalie Bonneau Cyril Cinelu
Germany	Fame Academy	RTL II		Become One (resulting six-member band)
Greece	Fame Story	ANT1	Website	Notis Hristodoulou Kalomoira Saranti Periklis Stergianoudis Leonidas Balafas
India	Fame Gurukul	SET	Website	Qazi Touqeer & Ruprekha Banerjee
Italy	Operazione Trionfo	Italia 1	Website	Bruno Cuomo
MaghrebTemplate:Ref 3	Star Academy		Website	Upcoming season
Mexico	Operación Triunfo	Televisa	Website	Darina Márquez
Netherlands	Star Maker	Yorin	Website	Sita Vermeulen
Philippines	Pinoy Dream Academy	ABS-CBN Studio 23	Website	Yeng Constantino
Portugal	Academia De Estrelas Operaçao Triunfo	TVI RTP	Website Website	Mané Sofia Barbosa Sofia Vitória
Romania	Star Factory	Prima TV	Website	Alex
Russia	Fabrika Zvezd	Channel One (Russia)	Website	Pasha Artemyev Gagarina Polina Nikita Malinin Irina Dubtsova Victoria Dayneko Dmitry Koldun
Spain	Operación Triunfo	TVE Telecinco	Website Website	Rosa López Ainhoa Cantalapiedra Vicente Seguí Sergio Rivero Current season
Turkey	Akademi Türkiye	ATV	Website	Özgür Çevik
UK	Fame Academy	BBC	Website	David Sneddon Alex Parks
USA	The One: Making a music star	ABC	Website	Cancelled

Template:Ref 1 Pan regional version with 11 African countries involved: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Template:Ref 2 Joint version with contestants from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Template:Ref 3 Adaptation for the Maghreb area. Countries taking part: Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia
Template:Ref 4 Joint version with 18 Arab World countries taking part in it (watching, voting and/or with a contestant): Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen.

Near copies of Star Academy

• Fame Factory
  • Lithuania
  • Norway
  • Sweden

• La Academia
  • Indonesia (Akademi Fantasi Indosiar)
  • Malaysia (Akademi Fantasia)
  • Mexico
  • Thailand (Academy Fantasia)
  • The United States (La Academia USA)

• Dream Show, the music
  • Greece

• Amici di Maria De Filippi
  • Italy