Star Academy Lebanon

For four years, the Lebanese TV station LBCI has presented to the Arab world a very successful show: Star Academy.  It is a talent school where budding students learn to excel their talents hoping one day to be the winner of the show and of course the next big star in the music world.  Star Academy is a popular reality TV show that airs four months per year, and is an Arabic version of the French Star Academy show.

The show is commonly known as Star Academy Lebanon because the academy is based in Lebanon, but a more apt name would be Star Academy Middle East because the students are not only Lebanese, but come from many different Arab countries. 
 
We welcome you to the Star Academy unofficial fan site where we will share the latest news about your favourite candidates in the academy, not only over the coming four months in the Star Academy show, but we will also closely follow their news after they graduate and launch their music careers.
 
The new and fourth season of Star Academy Lebanon has already begun with 19 new hopeful students from different Arab countries; 10 females and 9 males.  The beautiful Hilda Khalife will again host the Star Academy show.  She will appear every evening at 19.00 Beirut time on LBCI to provide us with daily highlights in the lives of the students at Star Academy.  Furthermore, she will host the Star Academy Prime which is aired live every Friday night at 21.00 Beirut time.  The purpose of the Prime is to give the students a chance to perform what they have learned during the week in front of a live audience with an invited Arab star as guest of the show.

An affiliate TV channel provides 24 hour live coverage of the candidates at the Star Academy.  Here one can closely follow the daily events in the academy: progress in classes, student-teacher interaction, relationships between students and their daily routines.  We can follow the progress of each and every student as they are mentored by professionals on how to sing, dance, act and vocalize.  They are also closely monitored by a dietician to ensure their healthy eating and living, and are taught gymnastics, theatre expressions and musical culture.

We must not forget that the Star Academy show is after all an academy, so every Monday the students undertake an evaluation test.  Based on the results, the teachers choose the weakest three students of the week, and their names are declared on Tuesday.  One of these three students will be voted to stay on in the academy by the audience.  The second will be voted to stay by the remaining students.  The last of the three students is therefore eliminated by default.  This elimination process takes place on Friday during Star Academy Prime.  When the total number of students decreases, then 2 candidates are nominated instead of 3. Then, only the public votes determine who is in and who is out of the Star Academy show. 

Star Academy Season 4 has many firsts – we have the first female from a Gulf Arab country (Bahrain) and the first student from Oman.

The show has now some revised formats to encourage competitiveness among the students.  The Star Academy show has introduced monetary rewards to the Top 5 students voted every week by the instructors.  At the end of the show the student with the largest balance receives the reward, regardless of his/her overall status in the show.  

‘Best friend of the week’ is also a new addition to Star Academy Lebanon where every week students nominate a ‘best friend’.

Star Academy is wildly popular and almost 80% of Lebanese adolescents follow this show religiously. In the Arab world, Star Academy Lebanon is considered to be one of the more popular shows.