Academy Fantasia

Infobox Television
show_name = Academy Fantasia


caption =
format = Reality television
runtime = approximately 2.5 hours
creator = Auttapon Na Bangchang
country = flagicon|Thailand Thailand
language = Thai
theme_music_composer = Pukkasron Renupong
presenter = Settha Sirachaya (Season 1-present)
network = True Visions, Modern 9 TV
first_aired = Jun 21 2004
last_aired = present
num_seasons = 5
num_episodes = 9 (Season 1) 12 (Season 2) 10 (Season 3) 13 (Season 4) 12 (Season 5)
num_contestants = 12 (Season 1) 12 (Season 2) 13 (Season 3) 20 (Season 4) 16 (Season 5)
website = http://trueaf.truelife.com

Academy Fantasia (or True Academy Fantasia) is a reality show held in Thailand. It is a singing contest, judged through popular vote.

Overview

Created by cable TV provider True Visions, formerly known as UBC, Academy Fantasia iscurrently airing its fifth season. Academy Fantasia is a franchise of La Academia, a popular reality TV show from Mexico. The contestants are selected through nationwide auditions, as well as through online audition clips. The live auditions take place in major cities in every part of Thailand to search for those who dream about becoming superstars. Four judges will eliminate thousands of people down to top 100 then last twenty or twelve finalists.

The contestants live in the same house with hundreds of hidden cameras. Audiences can watch them 24 hours live on TV and online. Each week the contestants are assigned individual songs and sometimes group songs to perform on stage every Saturday until the last week of the show. The contestants attend voice class, dance class, and acting class to practice the songs that they perform.

The audiences can vote for their favorite contestants through cell phones and land phones. It costs three baht for each vote. The show usually airs 24 hours on True Vision 20 (digital) and 16 (analog) and the concerts will be broadcast live on True Music Channel (Digital:26 , Analog:30) and ModernNine TV (public channel 9) every Saturday night between 21:00-23:30 Thailand time.

After each performance the commentators will evaluate the performance. At the end of the concert, the contestant(s) who received the lowest percentage of audience votes will have to leave the show.

The winners of the first four seasons were all male. The winners and the runner-ups will automatically receive record deals with True Fantasia record label. After the end of each season, there is a nationwide concert tour starring the top twelve finalists. However every season only the Top 5 performers win prizes such as a house, car, LCD TV or money.

Controversy

It is rumored that the show is rigged, with the winner having already been chosen since early on in the season, and that each season is manipulated in such a way that True receives the highest ratings as possible. Also, the voting is set up so that live rankings are shown online from the starting day of votes (Monday) through Friday, which is the day before the voting closes. This gives True approximately 24 hours to manipulate the vote in whatever way it wishes, and potentially gives it the opportunity to hand-choose which contestants will remain and which will be eliminated. However, none of those in charge of the show have admitted that there is any manipulation of voting results.

Critics claim that the various publicity stunts alone are enough evidence to suggest that such manipulations are occurring. For instance, the show's unexpected move of inviting contestants back into the running (as in seasons 2, 4, and 5) and all of the times that it went against the viewers' expectations by eliminating (or not eliminating) male or female contestants each week are obvious manipulations for higher ratings and more voting (meaning more money for telephone company True). In True's defense, these unexpected actions create the suspense one would expect to see in any television show. However, in a show that promises that the people have ultimate power (through their votes) in who stays or leaves, such manipulations, if they are occurring, are unacceptable.

Seasons

Season 1

21 June - 21 August 2004 (9 Weeks)----
* Week 1 None elimination.
* Week 5 None elimination. Because there's a failure of a system supported the votes, as a result, the votes of this week will be collected into the next elimanation week.
* Week 9 The finale----
*Week 1 theme: Songs by Trainers
*Week 2 theme: Songs by Trainers
*Week 3 theme: Songs by Trainers
*Week 4 theme: Songs by Trainers
*Week 5 theme: Duets
*Week 6 theme: Easy Listening
*Week 7 theme: International Soundtracks
*Week 8 theme: Rock n' Roll
*Week 9 theme: Contestant's Favourites (Finale)

:colorbox|#75A1D0| The Winner of season.:colorbox|green Final 5 contestants.:colorbox|violet Contestant was eliminated.:colorbox|orange Bottom 3-4 of the week.:colorbox|yellow None elimination week.:colorbox|red Contestant have the most popular vote on the special week and get the prize. (trip to Hongkong):colorbox|pink Contestant was the 2nd or 3rd of the special week.

* Only the colored boxes in this chart reflect contestants' rankings. Contestant names in white boxes are listed in order of their V number and are there merely as placeholders to show which contestants were still in the running and imply no rank.

Tui (V12) won the third season of Academy Fantasia. This is the first season of Academy Fantasia where two girls, Apple and Cherry, are counted as one contestant. Apple and Cherry are identical twins and every week they perform duo songs and sometimes group songs with other contestants.

Season 4

18 June - 15 September 2007 (13 Weeks)----
* Week 1 In this season, True AF had 20 contestants go into the Academy Fantasia house. However, this was still considered an Semi-Finals , since there are normally only 12 final contestants in each season. Thus, by the end of the week, 8 of the contestants were supposed to be eliminated, leaving us with only 12 people as the real finalists. After the 1st week's performance, the voting results showed that the bottom 8 consisted of 7 girls and 1 guy. In other words, only 3 girls would survive to the next round if they really eliminated 8 people. However, this could not happen according to the show's "bible" because in every season, there needs to be 5,6 or 7 men & 5,6 or 7 women (roughly equal number of men and women among the 12 contestants). Therefore, this week, instead of eliminating the bottom 8, they eliminated only the bottom 4, who were all female (Ae V4, Namfon V10, Anntie V14, Dear V20). It was also announced that in the following week, 4 male contestants would have to be eliminated, while the female contestants would be safe.
* Week 2 Like the previous week, this week was still considered another Semi-Finals round. After the first 4 eliminations, which consisted of only females, it was necessary to eliminate 4 males in the house to get the final 12 contestants. Since now there were already 6 females, the bottom 4 male contestants were eliminated by the end of the show (Bomb V5, Eaw V7, Man V13, Dew V15).
* Week 10 Surprise #1 - Karaoke theme: Each of the 5 remaining contestants had to choose a song from a given karaoke list (10 songs) to perform live. Surprise #2 - No elimination. At first, they deceived the audiences by making it seem like Nat (V1) got the least votes and would have to be eliminated. However, the truth was that he got the most votes, and along with that, he was given the power to bring back 2 people from the 7 who were eliminated in week 3-9 (i.e. any 2 people excluding the first 8 who were eliminated before the final 12 round). Anyone brought back would have the chance to continue studying in the Academy Fantasia house. Nat (V1) had a hard time choosing the 2 people, but in the end, he decided to bring back Cat (V11) and Pong (V19) based on the reason that they were the ones with the least chance to benefit from the learning in the house, since they were the first two people (among the final 12 contestants) who got eliminated. Nat (V1) said he wanted to give them the chance to spend more time in the house and learn more from the classes. Due to this decision, Cat's and Pong's rankings in the show would be reset, but it was predetermined that they would not be able to receive the 1st, 2nd, 3rd prizes regardless of their final rankings.
* Week 12 The finale. Nat (V1) was crowned "The Winner of AF4", while Tol (V9) and Papang (V3) were the 1st and 2nd runner ups, respectively. After the concert, the show revealed yet another big surprise for both the audience and the contestants by announcing that all 20 contestants would be brought back to the Academy Fantasia house for an extra week (9 September - 15 September 2007). All of the money received from the votes during this extra week would be given to charity, and the contestant with the highest votes would receive The Most Popular Vote of the Week award.
* The Extra Week The theme for week 13's concert was 'The Best of TRUE AF4'. Jack (V2) got the most votes and was crowned 'The Most Popular Vote of the Week'. As a reward, he got to choose to travel to any country with the one fan who voted the most for him.

----
*Week 1 theme: Semi-Finals #1
*Week 2 theme: Best of me (Semi-Finals #2)
*Week 3 theme: Thai Contemporary
*Week 4 theme: Boy Band & Girl Group
*Week 5 theme: Thai Country
*Week 6 theme: Cover Hits
*Week 7 theme: Superstars Superhits
*Week 8 theme: Tele Songs
*Week 9 theme: Cheer
*Week 10 theme: NO! (Karaoke)
*Week 11 theme: Dance
*Week 12 theme: Contestant's Favourites (Finale)
*Week 13 theme: Contestant's The Best of TRUE AF4 & His Majesty The King's Songs (The Extra Week)

:Bold Mean this contestant from clip audition

:colorbox|#75A1D0| The Winner of the season.:colorbox|violet Contestants were eliminated.:colorbox|#666666 Contestants were eliminated in Semi-Finals:colorbox|gold Contestants were given the chance to return into the house just 1 week and be voted back into the competition again.:colorbox|lightgreen Contestant return to competition once again.:colorbox|orange Bottom 2-3 of the week.:colorbox|green Final 5 contestants.:colorbox|yellow Contestant used immunity to save herself from elimination.:colorbox|red Contestant was 2nd place for popular votes for the week and received immunity from elimination.:colorbox|pink Contestants were either the 1st or 3rd most popular in votes for this week.:colorbox|black Contestants didn't return to the competition in voting back week.:Bold Qualified through online clip audition

* Only the colored boxes in this chart reflect contestants' rankings. Contestant names in white boxes are listed in order of their V number and are there merely as placeholders to show which contestants were still in the running and imply no rank.

Contestants Statistics

The Winners

*Oldest winner: Vit (Season 1), 27 years old
*Youngest winner: Aof (Season 2), 18 years old
*No bottom three appearance: Tui (Season 3)
*Most bottom three appearances: Vit (Season 1), Aof (Season 2), Nat (Season 4) & Nat (Season 5), only 1 time
*Winner who was eliminated & voted back again: Nat (Season 5)

All Contestants

*Total number of contestants: 73
*Oldest contestant: Joomjim (Season 1), 28 years old at the time of taping
*Youngest contestants: Multiple Contestants , 18 years old
*No bottom three appearance: Jeen (Season 1), Tui (Season 3), Good (Season 5)
*Most bottom three appearances: Micky (Season 5), 5 times
*Contestants part of a double elimination: Loogtarn (Season 2), My (Season 2), Cat (Season 4)
*Contestants were recruited into the competition again: Boy (Season 2), Pong (Season 4), Nat (Season 5)
*Contestants were eliminated with no bottom 3 annoucement of that week: Jack (Season 4), Tab (Season 5), Micky (Season 5)

Links

* Main Site
** [http://trueaf.truelife.com True AF 5]
** [http://trueaf.truelife.com/home.aspx True AF 4]
* [http://www.af-club.net AF Club]
* [http://www.af-studio.net AF Studio]
* [http://www.af-ground.co.cc AF Ground]
* La academia

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True Academy Fantasia"'