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No sign of Rising Star yet

Australia is yet to pounce on the Israeli singing format that is being scooped up around the globe.

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2013-12-28_0049There’s still no sign of Rising Star for Australia -the Israeli interactive singing contest which emerged from MIPCOM as the next big reality show.

Rising Star involves a huge video wall of monitors where viewer voting is visualised Live while a singer is performing before it.

It’s been a huge hit in its native country, attracting over 10 million votes.

It has now been sold to ITV in the UK, ABC in America plus Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Russia, Scandinavia and Hungary.

Keshet Vice President of Programming Ran Telem told The Hollywood Reporter, “We went on the air three months ago and none of us were able to foresee the power we were about to unleash, our first sale to France was three episodes in,” he says.

“When one acquires a format, it is usually just knowledge and experience he inherits from original creators, but with our show it’s different because it entails technology that we developed, and which has now finished its 24-episode test run in Israel. If I’m buying a format, I want peace of mind that everything’s working.”

In the US there is talk that The X Factor, which has been struggling, will even incorporate a “fifth judge” in the form of a social media live-voting screen.

So far no network in Australia has announced the rights to Rising Star (Keshet already has a foothold in Australia), but presumably TEN would be the obvious contender, given Seven and Nine already have successful singing shows.

There would also be limitations with time zones in Australia, unless a network got creative with their scheduling or multichannels.

16 Responses

  1. @ChrisN, yes, the hamfisted, obligatory sobfest backstory ruins talent shows for me. I don’t know if producers in other countries versions of these shows concentrate on weepy bathos as much as the Australian shows do, but I agree, it’s a turn-off. I get that many of these contestants are triumphing over adverse personal situations which is obviously of interest, but it does not need to constantly be mentioned or highlighted.

  2. This show is what The Voice should have been. I can’t stand The Voice, but I would totally watch this show (depending on how badly the Australian producers screw it up as they inevitably will with talentless judges, sob stories and preachiness).

  3. I heard not too long ago that TEN had knocked back a new series of ‘Idol’, so maybe their thinking is…too many singing comps? The scheduling aspect is also a disincentive. How can you schedule a show in the ‘main city’ markets later than 9pm so as to include WA? They won’t do that and yet again the west suffers with these live to air programs that have the potential draw big numbers not available to their viewers. Rising Star would lose its appeal if you start tinkering with time zones. Stay toooned I guess!

  4. First of all, congratulations to the Amazing Rabbis, that was one very fine cover of such an iconic song as “Sounds of Silence”. Bravo! Secondly, no, this country does not need another singing reality show, Our TV schedule is already cluttered with them.

    @jonno, agree that Seven would be the best fit for this show if an Aussie network decided to run with it, as they certainly do reality the best, and they are light years in front of the other networks in building hype and water cooler buzz for their shows. However, I can’t see them diluting the impact of the X-Factor with a second major singing contest.

    @Bass_A, I personally think the spinning chairs gimmick on The Voice is absolutely horrible. I cannot get over how rude and ill-mannered it is to expect people to sing whilst the judges backs are turned. Ghastly, I lasted half of the very first episode before switching off…

  6. David- VVV is kinda right, the American version of the Voice was originally shown on GO!
    Why can’t SBS pick up this concept? Ten will have SYTYCD which should pull the demographic they’re chasing. SBS did relatively well producing the talent show which searched for “Bollywood’s next star” (the shows title escapes me), they really should invest in reality TV more.

  7. Just watched the clip and love it. I think 7 would be a good fit for this. They do reality best and can market shows better. I know Danni is on Xfactor but can really see her on this show.

  8. If any network picks it up here i’d say TEN. Nine and Seven wouldn’t want to cannibalise their own in X Factor and The Voice but then again if its the next big thing maybe one of them will go for it.

  9. Ten should buy the rights to the US or UK version, and air it on ELEVEN. Then launch an Australian version on Ten. Just like Nine did with The Voice.

    I also think they should pick up AGT (assuming Nine don’t), but they should run it Sunday-Thursday rather than once a week.

    Example:
    Week 1: Auditions (Sun-Thu)
    Week 2: Top 40 (Split into 5 groups, one group per day: Sunday-Thursday).
    Week 3: Remaining contestants perform (Sun) Winner announced (Mon).

  10. Ten could make an insanely bold move by broadcasting live nationwide on its primary channel when non-daylights savings time minimises the time differences and creating an unheard of national interest. What have they got to lose?

  11. I see a lot of similarities between that concept and Black Mirror’s 2nd episode though instead of a wall of computer sprites it is a wall of pictures they’re performing to.

  12. I can’t see this working here especially since The Voice owns the best gimmick – “the spinning chairs” are genius, this looks too convoluted and the Luddites out there won’t get it

  15. In a landscape where MKR, The Block, and House Rules are some of our biggest shows. Ie. shows that have little or no licencing fee. It will be hard for networks to remain competitive with big international formats that have $30mil+ licencing. These international franchises that only have a mixed strike rate in Australia look very unattractive to network shareholders and might be a thing of the past.

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