Rising Star: Host, Judges, Selection Criteria and Top 14 Contestants 2017

Rising Star, is an Indian reality singing competition and its the version of the International franchise series Rising Star. It is based on the Israeli singing competition, ‘HaKoKhav HaBa’, made by Keshet Broadcasting Ltd. Rising Star, is aired in the channel Colors TV and they have also officially introduced a live voting system. Through the live voting system, people can cast their vote for their favourite contestant, by means of Colors TV app, which is made available for Android and iOS phones.

The show first premiered on Colors TV, on February 4, 2017 and it is aired on weekends by 9.00pm. This is the first show, where audience are able to vote for their favourite contestant online. Popular playback singer and music director Shankar Mahadevan, playback singer and actor Monali Thakur and actor-singer Diljit Dosanjh are the experts in the show. This is the Debut TV show for the singer Diljit Dosanjh.

Host:   The show is being hosted by singer-actor Meiyang Chang and dancer-choreographer Raghav Juyal.

Judges: The viewers are considered as judges, since the show will be happening in the real time and they are able to cast their votes for the favourite stars. However, in the expert panel there will be three celebrities ‘Shankar Mahadevan, Monali Thakur and Diljit Dosanjh’.

Production: On October 16, 2016, Variety had reported that Viacom 18 had signed the license agreement with Keshet International for the format rights to the reality show. The show is aired in Colors TV from February 4, 2017

Eligibility Criteria: The contestant should be years or above. They can perform Solo, Duet, Trio or Group Act. Only the talent matters, if you are able to sing during audition, then you are selected.

Audition Format: In contrast to the other shows, here the contestants will be asked to perform in Live and audience will be the judges for their performance. Both the votes from audience as well as the expert panel are considered. However, expert panel will not influence more than 7% of the voting.

• Round 1: In Round 1, the contestants will be asked to perform individually, behind a screen called ‘The Wall’. After the performance, the voting starts and registered voters can select ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, even if they haven’t selected anything then it will be considered as ‘No’.

If the expert votes ‘Yes’, the another 7% will be added to the tally of the contestant. The contestants can also view the face of their favourable voters in the screen. Once the contestants gain 70% votes, the wall is raised and the contestant, qualifies to the next round.

• Round 2: Contestants who make it through Round 1, will be paired by the judges to face off in a duel. In this round, the first contestant sings with the wall up and will set a benchmark for the second contestant. After this, the second contestant sings with the wall down. If the total number of votes secured by contestant 2 is more, then the wall is raised and second contestant proceeds to the next round, while contestant 1 is eliminated. If contestant 2 fails to raise the wall, he/she will be eliminated and contestant 2 goes through the next round.

• Round 3: The contestant will be split into two groups and asked to sing. The contestant who scores less voting percentage will be sitting in the Red Sofa and finally those contestants will be eliminated.

Round 1 Finalists:

The Live Audition finalists: The Live auditions began on February 4, 2017 and the applicants were asked to perform individually. The finalists in the Round 1 are as follows:

These Top 30 contestant’s will be moving on to the second round and if they clear that round they will be passing on to quarter-finals, else they will be eliminated.

Round 2 – Duels Ki Takkar Finalists:

As already mentioned, contestants will be paired with one another and each will be asked to perform, to raise ‘The Wall’.

Round 3: Red Sofa Elimination

India’s Top 16 contestant will compete in this round, the contestant who scored less votes will be moved to the Red Sofa. Finally, the contestant who sits in the red sofa will be eliminated.

Top 14 Finalists:

These are the list of the Top 14 finalist, from the last round. They will be proceeding to further rounds and we have to wait till next week to see who will be advancing further. Until then, we have to stay tuned!