The Arena (Singapore TV series)

infobox television
show_name = The Arena
bgcolour = Blue


caption = "The Arena" logo
format = Debate
executive_producer = Ignatius Teo
producer = Prem Anand
Lindsay Jialin
Monica Goh
runtime = 60 Minutes
hosts = Jason Chan Adrian Pang
country = Singapore
network = MediaCorp TV Channel 5
first_aired = 9 January, 2007
last_aired = present
num_seasons = 2
num_episodes = 12
website = http://www.thearena.com.sg/

"The Arena" is a debate-style television show produced by Mediacorp Channel 5 in Singapore. Season 1 of the show was broadcast from January-March 2007. A second season, known as "The Arena II", was aired from March-May 2008. The show involves teams of students from secondary schools in Singapore debating against each other on issues of topical interest.

Season 1 of the show was won by the team from the United World College of South East Asia, who defeated Hwa Chong Institution in the final. The season was hosted by the popular Singapore TV personality Adrian Pang.

For "The Arena II", Jason Chan replaced Adrian Pang as the show's host. The season was won by Raffles Institution, who defeated Nanyang Girls' High School in the final.

"The Arena" was one of the four nominees for the 2007 International Emmy Award in the 'Children and Young People' category, alongside shows from Australia, Brazil and Poland. [http://ch5.mediacorptv.com/wassup/ch5announcements/view/938/1/.html] (The winning show in the category was "The Magic Tree" from Poland. [http://www.iemmys.tv/awards_nominees.aspx] )"The Arena" was also one of six nominees for the 'Best Game or Quiz Programme' at the 2008 Asian Television Awards. [http://www.asiantvawards.com/ATA2007nominees.htm]

"The Arena" Season 1

Season 1 of "The Arena" was broadcast from January-March 2007, and ran for 11 episodes. In each episode, teams from two secondary schools in Singapore debated against each other. The topic for debate was different for each episode. Ten schools competed in the first round, from which the five winning teams and the best-scoring losing team progressed to the quarter-finals. The semi-finals were contested by the three winners and the best-scoring losing team from the quarter-finals. In the Grand Final, telecast on 27 March 2007, the team from the United World College of South East Asia defeated the team from Hwa Chong Institution to win the competition. Each episode was hosted by Adrian Pang.

Progress of teams

Ten schools qualified for the televised rounds of "The Arena" Season 1.

"Note:" The highest-scoring losing team in the Quarter-Finals advanced to the Semi-Finals as a 'Wildcard'.

Topics and results for each episode

Judges

For season 2 of "The Arena", the number of judges for each episode was reduced from four to three. K.K. Seet has returned from the first season as a permanent judge, joined by the President of Debate Association Singapore, Gaurav Keerthi. The third judge for each episode was a guest judge. Guest judges included Mark Gabriel and Adrian Tan. Viswa Sadasivan was again the guest judge for the Grand Final.

The preliminary selection rounds (which were not televised), were judged by Mark Gabriel, Geetha Creffield, Ashraf Safdar and Gaurav Keerthi.

Winning team

The winning team for "The Arena II" came from Raffles Institution. Their team members were Adil Hakeen, Jarret Huang, Ashish Kumar and Nicholas Quah.

External links

* [http://www.thearena.com.sg/ The Arena official website]
* [http://ch5.mediacorptv.com/shows/variety/view/1384/1/.html The Arena Channel 5 page]
* [http://5.mediacorptv.sg/wassup/hotpicks/view/968/1/.html Season 2 press release]
* [http://forum.mediacorp.com.sg/board/forumdisplay.php?s=f902847fc93fa0870a41036b05fb18bb&forumid=256 Mediacorp discussion forum for "The Arena" Season 1]
* [http://forum.mediacorp.com.sg/board/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=270 Mediacorp discussion forum for "The Arena II"]
* [http://www.debates.org.sg/ Debate Association Singapore - the external debate consultants for The Arena]