Megasztár

Megasztár - Voice of the Year is a Hungarian voice talent television series that started in 2003 on TV2. While it is widely considered an unlicensed clone of the British television show Pop Idol (and sometimes even referred to as Hungarian Idol), TV2 maintains that it is a distinct format created by SBS management member Christoph Buerge. The sixth series was the last, because TV2 bought the license of The Voice. The Hungarian edition of The Voice premiered in fall 2012; it will be the rival show to X-Faktor.

The show is notable for not only stirring up but, in the end, radically changing the pop music world in the Hungary of the 2000s, often criticized due to the lack original talent that Megasztár set out to find. As Péter Geszti said during the third series finale, "Hungarian pop musicians are afraid of Megasztár singers because the latter are extruding the former from the pop market."

Indeed, three albums from Megasztár singers already finished in Hungary's official top ten sales list, and by 2005, five of the top ten sellers were Megasztár-related albums.

Auditions for each series are organized in the summer. In these, entrants (the number of whom reached several tens of thousands by the third series) each introduce themselves in front of the jury (already familiar with their application, consisting of a CV and a number of songs given as favourites) with a song either selected by them or the jury, who may either ask them to stop or continue based on their performance.

From the auditions fifty people are selected, who, in groups of ten, participate in semi-finals in the autumn, singing one song selected by themselves, and with the jury selecting the best two each time to participate in the finals. The jury also has to pick an additional singer each time to participate in a special semi-final, where two more singers are also picked up for the finals, but this time the audience vote for the singers by phone and text messages (and in the third series, via the internet as well).

The finals are organized in the spring, where finalists are eliminated one by one, based on the audience's votes. In the first series, the singer with the least votes was eliminated. In the second series, the jury chose one singer to continue from the two with the least votes. In the third series, the jury chose a singer to continue from the three singers with the least votes, the remaining two having to sing a 'duel' for the audience's votes.

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Wikipedia