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Saija Grzegorek
Fame Academy was a British television talent competition to search for and educate new musical talents. The winner received a chance to become a successful music artist and part of the international franchise Star Academy known under various titles in various countries.
In the UK version, the prize consisted of a 1m recording contract with a major record company, plus the use of a luxury apartment in London and a sports car for one year. It was broadcast by the BBC and co-produced by an Endemol company called Initial. The first series was won by David Sneddon and the second and final series by Alex Parks.
The format was originally created in the Netherlands under the title Star Maker, and has already achieved major success around the world (especially in France and Spain) under the titles Star Academy and Operacin Triunfo. A German version also called Fame Academy had been launched in 2003 on RTL II with far lesser success.
Every week, depending on the perceived quality of their performances, contestants would be put into either "safe" or "danger" zones. Anyone in the latter had to undergo a system of voting by the other participants to determine which one would then be forced to leave.
The show was partly reality television, because the daily lives of the contestants could be watched through live streaming via Freeview. This was accomplished through the instalments of 'spycameras'. Coverage of the show was widely shown on BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Prime and CBBC (latterly under the title CBBC at the Fame Academy, on both the channel and the BBC One and Two strands).[1]
Although it was viewed by critics as being very similar to the Pop Idol and Popstars series, and was generally classified as an entertainment programme, Fame Academy was presented as a relatively new concept. The show was advertised as being considerably more than just a talent contest with the contestants singing on weekly live TV shows, as on the Pop Idol and Popstars series. The programme makers also included a long-term vision.[2]
Fame Academy claimed to emphasise the creative talent of the contestants, (called "students" on the show) who were encouraged to write their own songs and music as well as developing their singing technique and performing skills. Inside the academy for a period of ten weeks, the students were given a complete musical education. This included individual vocal coaching with tutors including Carrie Grant and David Grant, songwriting lessons, personal development, fitness/dancing classes, and workshops with professionals. The students stayed at Witanhurst, an historic Georgian-style mansion in Highgate that was specially redressed for the series. They were provided with dormitory-style living accommodation, communal meals and recreation areas.
The programme was filmed as a reality television show in the Big Brother format, with the students being completely cut off from the outside world and were not allowed to leave the "Academy" without supervision. The contestants were televised constantly through a vast network of cameras that were monitored 24 hours day.
Viewers of the streaming programmes were able to watch almost everything going on behind the scenes. Singing lessons, dance classes, rehearsals and costume fittings were all filmed, as well as the daily life of the contestants from waking up to going to sleep. This also included mealtimes, relaxation periods and "private" moments. The social interaction between the students, and the growing tensions as their numbers dwindled, added to the interest of the show week by week and highlights of the live streaming, heavily edited, were also shown as part of the CBBC and BBC Three spin-off programmes and on the weekly showdown.
The pre-selection auditions, of over 12,000 applicants, were held nationwide by music professionals and the production crew and were not part of the show. The final selection of contestants were presented to the public in the first airing of the series. Students performed live on the main weekly shows, individually, in pairs or in groups, singing a selection of cover songs chosen by the production team. Some of the self-penned material by the students was also showcased on the live performance shows.
Teachers and judges gave their opinions of the students' performances on air, and the television audience voted to "save" their favourite student throughout the week and at the live showdowns each Friday night, with one student leaving each week.
The Comic Relief series returned on 3 March 2007 for a third series. It was announced by the BBC that Cat Deeley would not return because she was hosting So You Think You Can Dance. Patrick Kielty returned this time with co-host and host of the former spin-off show, Claudia Winkleman. The third series ran nightly from Wednesday 7 to 16 March (Red Nose Day). The winner of this series was Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.
The long-term vision behind Fame Academy was to inspire young people into music. Beside the televised series, a project was launched during the 2002 series to fund a charity through the telephone voting of the live performance shows. This became the Fame Academy Bursary and is supported by Youth Music, British Council and the BBC.
The 2002/2003 series was headed by a team of 9 production managers encompassing the areas of web production, 24/7 reality filming for live streaming, setup of the weekly live 'expulsion' performances both at Shepperton Studios and Witanhurst, daily live broadcasts for BBC Three and CBBC. In general they also ensured the smooth running on-location. This also meant to act as a liaison with local authorities (Southwark London Borough Council and Camden London Borough Council), get building consent and permissions from its planning departments, handle (tele)communications between BT and BBC TV Centre and keep track of Security, Health, Safety and Fire issues.
On a new edition of the Footballco Business Podcast, regular host Alex Manby was joined by some of those responsible for the show to find out how to create football content for young fans and why the south-coast club was perfect for the show.
Football club documentaries and docuseries are not new, and since the likes of Netflix and Disney+ have seen their value, there has been an influx of shows with ambitions to be the next Sunderland 'Til I Die or Welcome to Wrexham.
Few of these are aimed at the youngest fans, a market well catered for and understood by the BBC's CBBC brand. However, creating a show for young children takes more than just showing young children on screen.
"There are so many demands on children's time, including lots of other media," Margrie told the Footballco Business Podcast. "So going right back to the decision to commission, [it] was based around what will bring children to it?
"So, football, obviously, being a big sport for kids, was why we commissioned it. We also bring in people on TikTok, influencers who are good at football, or faces that children will know from the football world, just to encourage children to come to the show.
"And we like to show children themselves reflected back on screen. So, another reason for coming to Southampton was because it's got a lot of different kids from different backgrounds. So that was also a decision around bringing more kids to it. Also the pace of cutting - I think you'll find that the way that we cut, the number of shots that we include, the amounts of different tracks of music... bringing some fun into it."
"Alan Carr does a brilliant job on the voiceover, just making it funny because we know that children love to laugh and seek out fun stuff all the time," Margrie added. "So it's really important that we weren't making this a serious, heavy documentary about the difficulties of being in a football academy.
"You'll see from the end of every episode there is a positive outcome. And that's really important for us to show that you can go through tough times, but you can also come out the other end. We can't control whether Southampton is going to win a match or not, but what we can control is the way we tell that story to make it accessible to young children. And to keep the kind of hope and the fun of it all within the series."
"We know that there's a real crisis at the moment with children spending too much time on phones and indoors and not getting out. So, to be able to show that it's possible to join teams, no matter what, was really important to us. And also to tell those stories.
"So many disabled children are kind of put into a box, particularly if a viewer doesn't know a disabled child or doesn't have a friend who is disabled. So it was very important to us to tell their stories in as involved a way as we tell all the other stories so that you could get a sense that these kids are great and they're just like me."
Narrated by Alan Carr, whose father was a professional football team manager at Northampton Town amongst others, the new show also sees Southampton first team and England international players James Ward-Prowse, Nathan Redmond and Kyle Walker-Peters take part in a range of football challenges with the academy pupils.
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