Rising Star has smashed the traditional singing competition show model by letting fans vote during contestant performances using a mobile app designed by the show's creator, and the results go up in real time.
It works like this: The performer walks on stage and begins to sing in front of a massive, transparent LED screen. As she starts to sing, fans vote on whether they like her performance. As they vote, their photos—gleaned from Facebook—appear on the screen, known as "the wall." If the singer wins over 70 percent of the audience, the screen lifts, and she's on to the next round.
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A single fan vote isn't worth much, but their collective tally is worth a bunch more than in previous gameshows. Rising Star has four judges, and each of their votes is only worth seven percent.
Keshet, the company behind the show, told The Hollywood Reporter that they were nervous about the rate of audience participation. Those fears proved unfounded, though, as 30 percent of all viewers took out their smartphones to be a part of the show, about 10 times the participation rates Keshet shows had seen in the past. Fans have downloaded the app 1.2 million times since last month's premiere, and they've cast 2.3 million votes.
The revolutionary approach led to the show capturing 44 percent of the total Israeli TV audience on its first day, and two episodes later that number has spiked to nearly 50 percent.
Organizations outside the country have taken notice. French broadcasting company M6 has secured a deal with Keshet to adapt their own version of the competitive show, and it's reportedly also drawn interest from US buyers. There aren't any takers on this side of the Atlantic yet, though. Potential purchasers could be worried that the show's format won't work in a nation with multiple timezones.
In some ways, Israel seems uniquely suited for an interactive show, because the average Israeli smartphone owner spends 80 minutes a day using various apps, the most minutes-per-day usage of any country on the planet. But some US statistics show that America may also be primed for the interactive model. The research firm NPD Group reports that 87 percent of US citizens who watch TV also use another screen, and 47 percent of those viewers use their screens to do something related to the show. Rising Star only needed a 30 percent participation rate to be a huge success.
What do you think of Rising Star's social media component? Tell us in the comments, below.
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Image: Flickr, familymwr