Information about Super Star

سوبر ستار
Super Star Finalists (with dates of elimination)
Season 1 (2003)
Diana Karazon	Winner
Rouwayda Attieh	August 18
Melhem Zein	August 11
Saoud Abou Sultan	August 4
Wael Mansour	July 28
Merhi Serhal	July 21
Shadi Aswad	July 14
Mohammad Lafi	July 7
Saad Jamal Al-Dine	June 30
Haytham Saeed	June 30
Nancy Zabalawi	June 23
Saber Hawari	June 23	Season 2 (2004)
Ayman El Aatar	Winner
Ammar Hassan	August 23
Hadi Aswad	August 16
Ranim Qteit	August 9
Brigitte Yaghi	August 2
Mohannad Mshallah	July 26
Houssam Madanieh	July 19
Abir Nameh	July 12
Abd El Rahman Mohamed	July 12
Houssam Chami	June 28
Mohamed Daoud	June 21
Wa'ad El Bahry	June 14
Mustafa Shwiekh	June 14
Raneen El Sha'ar	June 7
Zahi Saffeyeh	June 7
Rania Shaban	May 31
Yasmine El Husaini	May 31	Season 3 (2005-2006)
Ibrahim El Hakami	Winner
Shahd Barmada	February 6
Ayman Lseeq	January 30
Ahmed El Faleh	January 23
Asma Othmani	January 23
Nancy Nasrallah	January 9
Haitham El Shoumali	January 2
Ibrahim Abd El Adheem	December 26
Asma Ben Ahmed	December 19
Hatem Adar	December 19
Samar Andeel	December 5
Yusra Hamzawi	November 28	Season 4 (2007)
Marwan Ali	Winner
Saad El Mjarred	June 4
Yusra Mahnoush	May 28
Ahmad Hussein	May 14
Rihab Saleh	May 7
Ibrahim Ashri	April 30
Fadi Abd El Khaliq	April 23
Nesma Kurdi	April 23
Youssef Bara	April 9
Mustafa Said	April 2
Rawda Bin Abdallah	March 26
Elian Ba'ini	March 19
Nada Omar	March 19

Super Star (سوبر ستار) is an Arabic television show based on the popular British show Pop Idol created by Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment & developed by Fremantle Media. The show unites the Arab community by democratically choosing the next singing sensation. The show is broadcast worldwide on Future TV, a Lebanese television station. Its also the first Idol franchise to feature contestants from multiple countries.

The show was a huge success. Ali Jaber, the executive manager of Future TV, was quoted as saying "This (program) is the most successful for an Arab television. There isn't a television program that moved the Arab world like that." [1]

However, Superstar was eclipsed by rival show Star Academy on LBC in the Middle East, in terms of popularity and ratings, after only its first season. It has been surpassed by Star Academy as the number one Arab show, and doesn't move the Arab world the way it did during the first season.

SuperStar El Alaam

Diana Karazon participated alongside 10 other Idols in the 2 show mini-event World Idol, Diana placed equal 9th place with German SuperStar Alexander Klaws on 45 points. Diana performed the first radio single from her CD Super Star El Arab - Ensani Ma Binsak. [2]


Diana received the following scores respectively:
UK awarded 4 points
Belgium awarded 1 point
Australia awarded 4 points
USA awarded 8 points
Arab world awarded 12 points (default award)
Poland awarded 1 point
The Netherlands awarded 1 point
Canada awarded 5 points
Germany awarded 6 points
Norway awarded 2 points
South Africa awarded 1 point

Super Star 2

Three new audition cities were announced - Tunisia, Bahrain & Paris, France while Algiers was dropped. Tonia Moreeb decided to quit after receiving bad comments about her judging skills in the previous season. She was replaced with music critic/agent Fadia Tanab. An amazing 83 contestants had advanced to the semi finals of Super Star 2, 81 ended up performing before 2 contestants each week would advance to become part of the Top 14 contestants. This series also offered a Wildcard show where it was revealed by the CEO of Future TV - Ali Jaber, that the Top 14 would become a Top 17 & that the Top 5 vote getters in the Wildcards would advance.


Ayman El Aatar from Janzour, Libya won the title of Super Star on August 23 2004, beating runner up Palestinian Ammar Hassan with a weighting of 54% to 46%. [3]


It was revealed later that Ayman had missed the audition in Cairo, Egypt by one day & had one last chance to audition in Damascus, Syria.

Special guests

• Wadih El Safi
• Diana Karazon
• Rouwayda Attieh
• Melhem Zein
• Saoud Abou Aultan
• Asalah Nasri
• Nawal Al Zoghbi
• Sherine
• Diana Haddad
• Washeq El Kaman
• Nancy Ajram
• Muin Sharif
• Assi el Helani
• Mari Al Ehram

Super Star 3

The telecast of Super Star 3 was delayed after the assassination of Future TV Founder & Lebanese Prime Minister - Rafik Hariri, as the TV station went into mourning. [4]


Super Star 3 is currently the longest Idol production ever with auditions beginning in Cairo on November 10 2004, with the program culminating on February 6, 2006.

Rania Kurdi did not want to renew her hosting position for Season 3, as a result Heba Sisi was hired for Season 3, but due to the lengthy hiatus over the Hariri scandal, her contract prematurely ended before the semi finals had begun, leaving Ayman to host solo for the rest of the season.

Auditions took place in the following cities:

• Beirut, Lebanon
• Damascus, Syria
• Tunis, Tunisia
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Cairo, Egypt
• Amman, Jordan
• Sydney, Australia

94 contestants advanced to the theatre round in Beirut. 6 from America, 4 from Australia, 21 from Lebanon, 8 from Egypt, 5 from Jordan, 9 from Syria, 32 from Tunisia & 5 from UAE.


The new semi final format from Denmark & America was similarly adopted this season whereby the Top 21 (10 male & 11 female) were placed in male & female groups with 5 contestants advancing to the Top 12.


The semi finalists of Super Star 3 are:
Samar Andeel (Egypt), Aida El Rahbani (Lebanon), Nancy Nasrallah (Lebanon), Rashel El Rasi (Lebanon), Hasna Zlagh (Morocco), Shahd Barmada (Syria), Asma Ben Ahmed (Tunisia), Asma Othmani (Tunisia), Fouzia El Betri (Tunisia), Olfa El Barhoumi (Tunisia), Yusra Hamzawi (Tunisia), Mohamed El Abd (Egypt), Mohamed Jamal (Egypt), Ahmed El Faleh (Iraq), Youssef Kazar (Iraq), Ibrahim Abd El Adheem (Libya), Hatem Adar (Morocco), Haitham El Shoumali (Palestine), Ibrahim El Hakami (Saudi Arabia), Anis Ltaief (Tunisia), Ayman Lseeq (Tunisia)

As of December 12 2005, the competition of Super Star has been delayed due to the assassination of Lebanese senator Gebran Tueni, the results show scheduled to air on Monday December 12 2005 will be included with the results due on Monday December 19 2005.

On January 15 2006, the competition was once again postponed due to the passing of another key political figure, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. The performance show was recorded on Tuesday & aired on Thursday January 19. The votes from this round will be combined with the performance show on January 22 with the elimination of 2 contestants.

On the evening of Monday February 6 2006, Ibrahim El Hakami from Saudi Arabia became the 3rd Super Star over Shahd Barmada with a 53% to 47% weighting. Along with the title of Super Star, Ibrahim also won a Ford Focus. [5]

Finals elimination Chart

Date	Bottom Four
November 28	Yusra Hamzawi
December 5	Samar Andeel	Ahmed El Faleh	Asma Ben Ahmed	Ibrahim El Hakami
December 19	Asma Ben Ahmed (2)	Hatem Adar
December 26	Ibrahim Abd El Adheem	Asma Othmani	Ibrahim El Hakami (2)	Nancy Nasrallah
Date	Bottom Three
January 2	Haitham El Shoumali	Ibrahim El Hakami (3)	Shahd Barmada
January 9	Nancy Nasrallah (2)	Asma Othmani (2)	Ayman Lseeq
January 23	Ahmed El Falh (2)	Asma Othmani (3)	Shahd Barmada (2)
January 30	Ayman Lseeq (2)
February 6	Shahd Barmada	Ibrahim El Hakami

Special guests

Once again this season, special musical guests have been invited to the show to offer their support & critiques.

• Ayman El Aatar
• Ammar Hassan
• Hadi Aswad
• Ranim Qteit
• Tony Hana
• Abdullah El Rowaished
• Walid Tawfiq
• Marwan Khoury
• Nabil Shaeil
• Lotfi Boushnaq
• Julia Boutros
• Nancy Ajram

Super Star 4

Season 4 of Super Star was officially confirmed of the season 3 Grand Final.

On April 10 2006, the following audition cities were revealed on the official Future TV website:

• Beirut, Lebanon
• Cairo, Egypt
• Amman, Jordan
• Tunis, Tunisia
• Kuwait City, Kuwait
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Montréal, Canada
• Los Angeles, USA
• Detroit, USA

(Sao Paulo, Brazil was to be included but scrapped at the last minute [6])

Auditions took place during September 2006 and the new season premiered on Future TV in late January 2007, one week after the premier of the sixth season of American Idol. The performance show airs on Sunday night with the results show on Monday night.

Special Guests:

• Mayada El Hinawi
• Ibrahim El Hakami
• Wadih El Safi
• Brigitte Yaghi
• Hani Shaker
• Melhem Zein
• Sabah Fakhry
• Carole Samaha
• Ehab Tawfik
• Assi Helani

Finals elimination Chart

Date	Bottom Five
March 19	Elian Ba'ini	Nada Omar	Fadi Abd El Khaliq	Youssef Bara	Yusra Mahnoush

Date	Voted off
March 26	Rawda Bin Abdallah

Date	Bottom Four
April 2	Mustafa Said	Ibrahim Ashri	Nesma Kurdi	Rihab Saleh
April 9	Youssef Bara (2)	Ibrahim Ashri (2)	Marwan Ali	Nesma Kurdi (2)
April 16	Rihab Saleh (2)	Ibrahim Ashri (3)	Nesma Kurdi (3)
April 23	Fadi Abd El Khaliq (2)	Nesma Kurdi (4)	Ahmad Hussein	Yusra Mahnoush (2)

Date	Voted off
April 30	Ibrahim Ashri (4)
May 7	Rihab Saleh (3)
May 14	Ahmad Hussein (2)

Date	Top 3
May 28	Yusra Mahnoush (3)
June 4	Saad El Mjarred	Marwan Ali

•  • [ e] Idol series

National franchises: United Kingdom (original) • Armenia • Australia • Belgium • Brazil • Bulgaria • Canada • Croatia • Czech Republic • Denmark • Estonia • Finland • France • Germany • Greece • Iceland • India • Indonesia • Kazakhstan • Malaysia • Netherlands • New Zealand • Norway • Philippines • Poland • Portugal • Russia • Singapore • Slovakia • South Africa • Sweden • Turkey • United States • International franchises: Arab world • Asia • Latin America • Serbia-Montenegro & Macedonia • West Africa • World Idol

Map showing the extent of Idol franchises.

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Superstar is a term used to refer to a celebrity who has great popular appeal and is widely-known, prominent or successful in some field. Celebrities referred to as "superstars" may include individuals who work as actors, actresses, musicians, athletes, and other professions.

Application

The term "superstar" is a subjective assessment, yet there is no set criteria for applying the term. From an economic perspective, Alan B. Krueger's studies of the concept of the "superstar" in the music industry suggest that the top earning bands could be called "superstars". However, the term is also bestowed on individuals by media commentators, critics, and journalists, using aesthetic or other subjective assesment techniques in addition to quantitative criteria, or without quantitative criteria.

“[S]mall differences in the skill input of certain individuals may get magnified into large differences in the value of the service when that service can be consumed by a large audience that can share the cost.” As such “many people may each be willing to pay a little more to hear the best performer, who may only be marginally better than the next best performer, producing a superstar salary for the top performer.” This means that “even if the top executive of a firm is only slightly more talented than the next best person, that small additional talent is worth a huge amount if it affects thousands of employees or millions of customers.”^[1]

History

Origin of term

The origin of the term in the context of celebrity is uncertain, but a similar expression is attested in a 1832 book by John Nyren,The Cricketers of My Time. Nyren described the 18th century's greatest batsman John Small as "a star of the first magnitude."

Early 1900s: Development of the Hollywood "Star System"

By 1909, the silent film companies began promoting "picture personalities" by releasing stories about these actors to fan magazines and newspapers, as part of a strategy to build “brand loyalty” for their company’s actors and films. By the 1920s, Hollywood film company promoters had developed a “massive industrial enterprise” that “... peddled a new intangible—fame.”^[2]

Hollywood “image makers” and promotional agents planted rumours, selectively released real or fictitious biographical information to the press, and used other "gimmicks" to create personas for actors. Then they “...worked [to] reinforce that persona [and] manage the publicity.” Publicists thus "created" the "enduring images" and public perceptions of screen legends such as Rock Hudson, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly. The development of this “star system” made “fame... something that could be fabricated purposely, by the masters of the new ‘machinery of glory.’”^[3]

1970s: Academic interest in stardom

According to Sofia Johansson the "canonical texts on stardom" include articles by Boorstin (1971), Alberoni (1972) and Dyer (1979) that examined the "representations of stars and on aspects of the Hollywood star system." Johansson notes that "more recent analyses within media and cultural studies (e.g. Gamson 1994; Marshall 1997; Giles 2000; Turner, Marshall and Bonner 2000; Rojek 2001; Turner 2004) have instead dealt with the idea of a pervasive, contemporary, ‘celebrity culture’." In the analysis of the 'celebrity culture,' "fame and its constituencies are conceived of as a broader social process, connected to widespread economic, political, technological and cultural developments."^[4]

1980s-1990s: Publicity tactics

In the 1980s and 1990s, entertainment publicity tactics have become “more subtle and sophisticated”, such as using press releases, movie "junkets, and community activities. These promotional efforts are targeted and designed using market research, "to increase the predictability of success of their media ventures.” In some cases, publicity agents may create “provocative advertisements” or make an outrageous public statement to “trigger public controversy and thereby generate "free" news coverage.”^[5]

Socio-Psychological Theories

According to Roger Callois, superstars are created by the interplay between “mass media, free enterprise, and competition.” Superstars are produced by a mixture of effort by the actors or athletes and chance (the luck of winning, due to the many arbitrary factors influencing sports, film releases, etc.). The “superstar has extraordinary natural talent augmented by an even more extraordinary perseverance and drive.”

However, “small and relative differences are of decisive importance for winning or losing by a hair’s breadth.” It is here that chance plays a role; a sudden gust of wind at the end of a yachting race can mean the difference between stardom and defeat. Callois notes that the role of chance in superstardom is paradoxical, given that the west is such a “predominantly meritocratic society,” which valorizes the role of work, competition, activity, and determination.^[6]

“[Since] only one may be first. [a person may] choose to win indirectly, through identification with someone else”- the superstar, whose triumph as the most popular actor or hit recording artist is in part due to the actions of “... those who worship the hero”. The public believes that “the manicurist elected Beauty Queen, by the sales girl entrusted with the heroine’s role in a super production, by the shopkeeper’s daughter winning the Tour de France, [and] by the gas station attendant who basks in the limelight as a champion toreador” represents the chance or possibility, from the public's perspective, that they may become wealthy and successful.^[7] For example, Levine points out that "Lars Ulrich, the drummer for Metallica, was a service station attendant before becoming a rich rock star; Harrison Ford was a cabinet maker" before becoming a wealthy film star.^[8]

Caillois calls superstars’ huge incomes and rewards “disguised lotteries”, a “special kind of game of chance.” For example, the grand prizes for literary competitions “bring fortune and glory to a writer, for several years.” Callois notes that a “superstar” cannot merely be successful at some activity; they must also be richly rewarded. He says that the “material reward of the superstar is a necessary ingredient (for the glory of the star) for the identification of the public with the star, or whether it is the excellence or the private life of the star which is of more importance.” He states that superstars’ extravagant incomes play an important psychological “compensating mechanism” role for the public.^[9]

According to Madow, “fame is a "relational" phenomenon, something that is conferred by others. A person can, within the limits of his natural talents, make himself strong or swift or learned. But he cannot, in this same sense, make himself famous, any more than he can make himself loved.” Madow goes on to point out that “fame is often conferred or withheld, just as love is, for reasons and on grounds other than "merit." This means that regardless of how “... strenuously the star may ... try to "monitor" and "shape" it, the media and the public always play a substantial part in the image-making process.”^[10]

Economics of "Superstars"

Sherwin Rosen (1981) examined the economics of superstars to determine why “relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage.” Rosen argues that in superstar markets, "small differences in talent at the top of the distribution will translate into large differences in revenue."^[11] Rosen points out that "...sellers of higher talent charge only slightly higher prices than those of lower talent, but sell much larger quantities; their greater earnings come overwhelmingly from selling larger quantities than from charging higher prices"^[12]

Robert Frank and Philip Cook's book "The Winner-Take-All Society" describes how a small number of superstars have come to dominate in the artistic and cultural sphere: "Winner-take-all markets have proliferated in part because technology has greatly extended the power and reach of the planet's most gifted performers....Now that most music we listen to is prerecorded...the world's best tenor can be literally everywhere at once.”^[13]Alan B. Krueger's studies of the concept of the "superstar" in popular music indicate that "the top 5% of revenue generators took in 62% of concert revenue in 1982 and 84% in 2003", as demand for "superstar" performers increased.^[14]

Debate over Superstardom

Some scholars argue that superstardom has a useful role in society. Callois cites Rawls, who states that the “premiums earned by scarce natural talents . . . [serve] to cover the costs of training and to encourage the efforts of learning, as well as to direct ability to where it best furthers the common interest.”^[15] Cowen (2000) cites Rosen (1981) to argue that "the superstars effect is welfare-improving (consumers get better performances) even if it leads to raising income inequality," and adds that the "superstar phenomenon should not be overstressed. Indeed, fame is a positive-sum game, not a negative nor a zero-sum one." Cowen states that "countervailing forces operate, such as a convergence of quality that limits the ability of the very best stars to dominate the market for long, or more radically the elastic supply of fame." This means that "when demand for fame increases, the numbers of prizes, rewards and whatever fame generating distinctions is rising too."^[16] On the other hand, it has been argued "compensation systems that resemble prizes [lotteries] can also create perverse incentives by discouraging cooperative behaviour and may encourage some contestants to disrupt the performance of competitors".^[17] As well, Frank and Cook (1995) have called "into question the way the winner-take-all markets operate, with their damaging features." They argue that the "winner-take-all payoff structure [of competition for superstardom] generates a spiral of individual and social occupational waste, since it leads both to increasing (monetary and non-monetary) reward inequalities and to overcrowdings in the markets and occupations prone to an overestimation of one’s chance to succeed." Thus as a result, they argue that "when excess numbers of contestants are induced to invest in performance enhancement in order to rise their individual odds of winning, these investments will be mutually offsetting and socially inefficient; end consumers may get more valuable products but the social cost are excessive."

The "Superstar's Curse"

Arthur De Vany and W. David Walls use the term “superstar’s curse” to describe the risk involved in contracting "superstar" or "A-list" actors for feature films. De Vany and Wells claim that the "curse" exists because "..if superstars are paid their expected contribution to profit, their movies almost surely will lose money." They claim that this phenomenon occurs because film profits exhibit a "stable Paretian distribution" with a "finite mean and infinite variance" and a skewed shape that contributes to creating the “superstar’s curse”.^[18]

Boldrin and Levine point out that the "puzzling aspect [of superstardom] derives from the fact that, more often than not, the perceivable extent to which a superstar is a better performer or produces a better good than the lesser members of the same trade is very tiny." Boldrin and Levine predict that "superstars should abound in industries where the main product is information which can be cheaply reproduced and distributed on a massive scale". They note that this "...is the case for the worlds of sport, entertainment, and arts and letters, which coincides with the penetrating observations that motivated Rosen's original contribution [on superstardom]."^[19]

Other Meanings

"Superstar" art museums

A small number of major art museums, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, among others, have become household names and major tourist destinations. Art museums such as these, with their striking, architecturally-designed buildings and very well-known masterpieces can be termed “superstar” art museums.^[20] With their huge visitor traffic, superstar museums are often able to derive a significant income from museum bookshops and restaurants and have a “major impact on the local economy.”.^[21]

Superstar museums are able to use the popular appeal of their location and art holdings to produce their own books, videos, and television specials, which adds an additional revenue stream and further reinforces the public’s awareness of the museum. Some superstar museums have also begun establishing museum networks. For example, London’s Tate Gallery has launched satellite art museums at Liverpool and St. Ives.^[22].

Cultural institutions such as art museums play a “gatekeeping role” for consumers, helping to screen and grade the cultural artifacts and artworks, thus “reduc[ing] information and search costs” for consumers. Moreover, “by channelling resources to a limited group of visual artists, cultural institutions also enhance superstar phenomena within the visual arts.”^[23]

Superstar CEOs

McGraw-Hill’s economic website argues that the multi-million-dollar salaries of superstar Chief Executive Officers (CEOs)in the corporate world with can be viewed as a type of tournament prize. The huge salaries of superstar executives “often seem to resemble prizes for the winners of contests rather than compensation in return for the value of the marginal product of labour.” As an example, “a company may have many vice-presidents of roughly comparable ability and the v-p (who may only be slightly more talented than the others) that is promoted to president receives a huge salary increase, which resembles a prize for winning the contest as best v-p.”^[24]

The article goes on to argue that “...such a compensation system may be efficient if the organization is only able to rank its executives according to the relative value of their contribution to the organization (the organization cannot measure the productivity of each executive, only the productivity of the group of executives).” Moreover, “even if executives are paid a wage equal to the average productivity of the group, there will still be an incentive to perform in order be promoted and win the prize.” However, “compensation systems that resemble prizes can also create perverse incentives by discouraging cooperative behaviour and may encourage some contestants to disrupt the performance of competitors”^[25]

Others

Superstars is also the name of french writer Ann Scott's second novel published in 2000 by Editions Flammarion and considered to be cult in France. Translated into several languages but not English.

Nickname of Mexican American Comedian. Mario Salazar 11-06-1979 "Superstar" Salazar

Further reading

• Hamlen, William A. “Superstardom in Popular Music: Empirical Evidence.” Review of Economics and Statistics 73 (1991): 729–33.
• MacDonald, Glenn M. “The Economics of Rising Stars.” American Economic Review 78 (1988): 155–67.
• Rosen, Sherwin. The superstar effect – “The Economics of Superstars”, American Economic Review, 71 (1981).
• Salganik, Matthew J., Peter Sheridan Dodds, and Duncan J. Watts. "Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market." Science 311 (2006): 854-56.

References