YOU'RE A STAR

'''You're A Star''' is a singing contest in Ireland, created by Screentime ShinAwiL and Radio Telefís Éireann. It is shown weekly on RTÉ One over the winter months of each year. The show is broadcast live from The Helix theatre in Dublin City University.
The show was originally designed to select the Irish Eurovision Song Contest entrant, but this idea was abandoned in September of 2005. Title is a pun on "Euro Star".

Year	Winner	Runner-up	''Charity'' Winner
'2003'	Mickey Joe Harte	Simon Casey	-
'2004'	Chris Doran	James Kilbane	-
'2005'	Donna and Joseph McCaul	Jade	David Mitchell
'2006'	Lucia Evans	The Sullivan Brothers	John Aldridge
'2007'	David O'Connor	21 Demands	''The All-Stars:'' David Beggy, Barney Rock, Jack O'Shea

Contents

2003

2004

2005

Charity You're A Star

2005-2006

Presenters

Judges

Stages

You're a Star 2006-2007

External links

2003

The '2002/2003' series was the inaugural contest. Radio Telefís Éireann, being the Irish member of the European Broadcasting Union decided that the winner of You're A Star would go on to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest for the foreseeable proceeding years. The show was hosted by Ray D'Arcy. The Talent spotter, Phil Coulter and Kerry Katona served as judges. In the final, the public voted Mickey Joe Harte, a musician from Donegal, winner of the contest. He entered the 2003 contest with the song ''We've Got the World Tonight'' where he finished in eleventh position. This was one of the poorest results achieved by Ireland, the most successful country in the song contest having won the contest seven times. The song reaches No.1 on the Irish music charts, where it remained for five weeks and was the best selling song of 2003. However, Mickey Harte's most recent album only peaked at No.53.

2004

You're A Star returned for a '2003/2004' season. The judges of the show differed from season one. Chris Doran from Waterford won the competition. In the final of Eurovision Song Contest 2004 Chris Doran finished in 22nd position with seven points awarded by the United Kingdom. As a result, Ireland did not qualify automatically for the 2005 Eurovision final. The song reached No.1 on the Irish charts, but Chris was, however, unable to sustain a successful music career in Ireland. His most recent song failing to crack the top twenty.

2005

The format of the show was changed for the 2005 season, to try to ensure that Ireland chose an act with more appeal across Europe. The show was no longer limited to solo singer-performers; bands under the size of 6 people could now enter.
The final was held on 6 March 2005. Donna and Joseph McCaul, a brother-and-sister act from Westmeath won the contest; Jade, a band from Wexford, finished second; the Henry Girls finished third.
In the semi-final of Eurovision Song Contest 2005, Donna and Joe sang ''Love?''
(pronounced "love question mark"), written by Karl Broderick. The act failed to qualify for the final.
They also suffered the embarrassment of becoming the first 'You're a star' winner not to reach the No.1 position in Ireland, beaten by Akon's 'Lonely'. Their last song, released in June 2006, peaked at No.10.
More information

Charity You're A Star

''Main Article: Charity You're A Star''
In the Summer of 2005 eight Irish celebrities enrolled in a ''You're A Star Style'' competition. However their objective was not to become an international singing sensation, but raise money for a charity of their choice.
RTÉ and the producers decided to run a second season in 2006 where 10 celebrities went face-to-face for their noble cause.

2005-2006

On 16 September 2005 RTÉ confirmed that the show would return for a fourth series. However, unlike the previous three seasons, the 2005/2006 prize is not to represent Ireland in Eurovision Song Contest 2006. Instead, it is a recording contract with the record labels Universal Music Ireland and Polydor UK (international distribution). The live shows began on the first of January when the final contestants were chosen. These included Marilyn Bane who came third, The Sullivan Brothers who came second and Lucia Evans from Galway who won the competition and the recording contract. Her first and last song 'Bruised but not broken' only peaked at No.5 on the Irish Charts, making her the first 'You're a star' winner not to reach the top three. The song lasted three weeks in the top ten before a rapid fall from the top fifty.

Presenters

This year Síle Seoige and Derek Mooney hosted the season. Síle covered the auditions. She chatted with the acts before they perform in front of judges, congratulated those who got through the next round or sometimes offered a shoulder to cry on for those didn't. Derek hosted the live shows. He introduced the acts to the audience and then after the performance he asked the judges for their insight and sometimes played the part of referee when there is a conflict of opinion between the judges. rte.ie/tv/star/presenter

Judges

Linda Martin and Brendan O'Connor who voiced their professional opinion and advice during the ''Charity Special'' returned for this season along with Thomas Black of the record label Much Music.rte.ie/tv/star/judges
On the 26 February the judges announced their favorite contestants. Brendan's is Lucia Evens. Linda's two are Lucia and the Sullivan Brothers. Finally Thomas said that both Marilyn Bane and Lucia Evans were the strongest of the semi-finalists.

Stages

18 acts have been picked from the auditions. Nine acts went directly through to the first stage. The other nine went to the ''Wildcard'' show where an additional three acts were chosen to go the first stage.
Over January and February the contestants were slowly eliminated. At 20.00 on 4 March 2006 the semi-final was held on RTÉ One and the final was held on Sunday 5 March at 16.30, also on RTÉ One. The final pull 902,702 viwers and was the most wached program that season.

'Directly Through'	'Wildcards'	'Contestants'
Tammy Brown		Tammy Brown (eliminated 8 January 2006)
	Sinead McGovern	Sinead McGovern (eliminated 15 January 2006)
Ruairi Quinn	Tara Sinnot (eliminated 1 January 2006)	Ruairi Quinn (eliminated 22 January 2006)
The Ups		The Ups (eliminated 22 January 2006)
Leman	Elain & Alan (eliminated 1 January 2006)	Leman (eliminated 29 January 2006)
Nickel & Dime	Xerosun (eliminated 1 January 2006)	Nickel & Dime (eliminated 5 February 2006)
Ciara McGinn	Aibhe Du Vé (eliminated 1 January 2006)	Ciara McGinn (eliminated 12 February 2006)
Louise Killeen	Aoife Downey (eliminated 1 January 2006)	Louise Killeen (eliminated 19 February 2006)
	Jeannete Cronin	Jeannete Cronin (eliminated 26 February 2006
	Marilyn Bane	Marilyn Bane (eliminated 4 March 2006
Sullivan Brothers		Sullivan Brothers (eliminated 5 March 2006)
Lucia Evans	(eliminated 1 January 2006)	Lucia Evans (Winner)

Official Site

You're a Star 2006-2007

On the 19 August 2006 RTÉ confirmed that You're a Star was to return for a fifth series. The tour venues were The Hill Grove Hotel, Monaghan, The Helix and the R.D.S, Dublin, The Mill street arena, Cork and The Lodge Hotel conference centre in Galway. Brian Ormond hosted the audition phase and Keith Duffy hosted the live shows. Unlike in earlier series there was no wild card show. Out of seven thousand auditioned only 82 made it through to the workshop round.
Out of these, 40 went through to the knock-out round until the final 12 were chosen. The finalists were David O'Connor, 21 Demands, Maeve O'Donovan, Scuba Dice, Alan Kavanagh, Brian Clarke, Andrew Bennett, Shane Downey, Richie McCoy, Susan O'Neill, Laurie Smyth and Ian White. The prize this year was a recording contact with Universal Music, a publishing contract with Sony ATV Publishing, €10,000 worth of musical equipment from Roland Ireland and a cash price. Linda Martin, Brendan O'Connor and Thomas Black returned as the judges. Every week a guest act would appear on the series. These included Tony Hatch (who tutored the acts on one of the weeks), Sophie Ellis Baxter, The Blzzards, Shane Ward and McFly among others. Brian McFadden appeared one week as a guest judge.
On Sunday 3rd of March David O'Connor, 21 Demands, Maeve O'Donovan and Scuba Dice
released there own singles through digital7 downloads on the RTÉ website. They all made it into the top 20 in the Irish charts with 21 Demands coming in at number 1 on the billboards followed by
David O'Connor. The songs released were 21 Demands - Give Me a Minute, David O'Connor - The Winner Takes It All, Maeve O'Donovan - Landslide and Scuba Dice - Holiday.
21 Demands became the first act in Irish Chart History to score a number 1 on downloads alone.
The week prior to the finale a huge advertising campaign was lunched with TV ads, a poster campaign on billboards and buses and a radio campaign.
The finale was held over two nights on Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of March. Shane Ward and Louis Walsh were there to announce the winner. Louis Walsh said that 21 demands had a great future with the right management. Brendan O'Connor said it would be a crime if 21 demands did not win. Linda and Thomas agreed, however former jockey David O'Connor was crowned the winner. The finale pulled an average viewer ship rating of 806,000, down slightly on the previous year.

External links

★ "Partition to get Linda back on Your A Star

★ You're a star official website

★ You're a star official download site

★ Scuba Dice Website

★ The Production Co's website

★ PJ O'Shea's website

★ Lucia's website

★ Xerosun's website