Vasantham Star Is Over

One of those shows which keep me on the edge of my seat went on today - the Vasantham Star. This poor cousin of the 'Idol' franchise in Tamil was so exhilarating, to say the least. It was such a major production spanning over more than a year and the administrative costs were so high - the prize money was a whopping less than S$20K in total. Not to mention the tremendous turnout of contestants - a staggering 420 participants. Unlike the 'Idol' franchise, where the 3 judges had to go through thousands and tens of thousands, the Vasantham Star judges had to contend with such a capacity turnout as these 420 persons.

And unlike the 'Idol' franchise, where the organizers could only get judges who had made millions of dollars during their time, the Vasantham Star crew were able to recruit the best part-time singers and musician who probably received less compensation than the winner himself. The extremely high quality of the judges was also demonstrated by how the youngest of the 3 enjoyed reminding everyone how he was a former winner himself, how he had been trained in classical music, how he had been singing on TV for years whilst at the same time limiting his judging to extremely technical issues such as 'feel', 'look' and 'personality'. Another key indicator of the judges’ fine calibre is when the female judge kept insisting on fluency in Tamil and perfect pronunciation whilst she herself kept peppering her remarks with English.

I have to admit I was worried during the semi-final stages that someone who could actually sing or someone who really had talent was going to win the competition. But during the finals, the organizers had managed to keep a control of things and made sure the least qualified won it. Phew.

And after this gripping coupe, where the organizers have managed to cleverly copy a failure such as the "idol' franchise and repackage it into the ultra-successful Vasantham Star, I am left with the void of its conclusion. What will we all do?

But wait. The intelligent organizers of this fantastic parody wouldn't leave it as simple as that. After the highly successful SMS message board, which was 4 times more costly than similar programmes in other languages, as well as the voting revenue which brought in an estimated $10K per show, these clever masterminds would definitely offer this wonderfully generous community more opportunities to donate their hard-earned money to such worthy causes.

I can just imagine some of the spin-offs: head-to-head singing competitions between the judges and the finalists and voting by the viewers; re-voting through an extended period of voting to determine the order of the finalists; voting another 3 out of the 9 finalists who didn't clinch the first 3 spots and then having another shorter competition for the 2nd, 3rd placed winners together with these 3 voted finalists. Better still, why not have the 5 display their versatility by having a drama about their trials and tribulations and then have a voting period to choose the best actor/singer. Wow, the possibilities are endless. If I can come up with so much, I salivate at the thought of what the collective genius of Vasantham Central will come up with.