Starmania (TV series)

Starmania
Created by	Mischa Zickler
Starring	Hannes Eder Arabella Kiesbauer
Country of origin	Austria
No. of episodes	54
Production
Running time	2 h
Release
Original network	ORF 1
Original release	2002 – 2004, 2006–2007, 2008–2009

Starmania is an Austrian casting show, a talent show for would-be pop stars. It is broadcast on the Austrian TV channel ORF 1.

Despite striking similarities, Starmania is not a licensed version of the Idols format distributed by FremantleMedia. Attempts to export the format to Germany failed due to legal intervention from Fremantle. In 2004, ORF managed to sell the format rights to the Swiss channel SF, where the show is called MusicStar.

From 2003 to 2009, four seasons of Starmania have been aired in Austria.

To date, the winners have been Michael Tschuggnall, Verena Pötzl, Nadine Beiler and Oliver Wimmer. Christina Stürmer, who placed second in the first season, has become more famous than the other winners combined, with top charts positions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Also Conchita Wurst who was known as Thomas Neuwirth at Starmania, has become more famous than the other winners because she won the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen.

Starmaniacs-Singles:

The first season was the most successful to date. During the final broadcast, 6,000,000 votes were collected.

Michael Tschuggnall was the winner and Christina Stürmer was the runner-up. Two weeks later, they both released their respective debut singles. Stürmer's Ich lebe was much more successful than Tschuggnall's Tears of Happiness. Since then, Stürmer has managed to break into the Swiss and all-important German markets, whereas winner Tschnuggnall's visibility has been quite low.

Singles:

The second season (dubbed Starmania NG) was not as successful as the first one. The winner was Verena Pötzl, who had only one single in the Austrian Top-40.

Daniel Kajmakoski would later represent Macedonia in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest.

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