For the first time, you can compete to be a contestant in France's 'My Nouvelle Star' online
Henner Herwig Jürgens is Co-Founder and Managing Director at VAST MEDIA, a media research and consulting company based in Berlin that provides international television industry leaders with qualitative competitive market analysis of digital entertainment and content marketing.
The 12th season of "Nouvelle Star", the French adaptation of "Pop Idol" returns to D8 in 2016 with a big innovation: for the first time ever, contestants can directly qualify for the show by completing challenges in an online casting, without going through the traditional audition in front of the jury. From December 10 through December 18, 2015, applicants aged 16 to 34 could register online at 'My Nouvelle Star', a platform that allows users to build an online presence to get others to vote for them. The four applicants with the most votes will then be rewarded with a 'Golden Ticket'.
To both vote or set up a profile as an artist, users first need to register on the 'My Nouvelle Star' platform, which was developed by eTribez, a company that provides digital solutions for broadcast networks and TV productions, with either an existing Facebook account or an email address.
After the registration, all users immediately receive 2,000 NS coins, a virtual currency which can be used to vote for artists. To get more coins for free, users have the option to share the 'My Nouvelle Star' page across Twitter or Facebook. Alternatively, users can buy coins with actual money. The platform's home page features the challenges that the candidates are regularly presented with. The first challenge for example asked them to sing their all-time favorite song.
All candidates can submit photos, upload video files or record videos of themselves right from their browser. Additionally, they can attach links to YouTube and other video sharing sites. All the information and content can then be accessed on a candidate's profile, which the candidates can connect to their social media accounts. Each profile features a feed with messages from other users/fans. The users can vote for the candidates, which costs them 500 NS coins per vote, and also give virtual gifts. Those can be bought for varying amounts of NS coins.
Additionally, users have the option to 'boost' a candidate for 2,000 NS coins. The 'boosted' candidate is then featured for 24 hours at the top of the feed and on the platform's home page. The feed of all registered candidates on the platform's home page can be filtered by 'Favorites', 'Most Popular', 'Boosted' and 'Recently Active'. At the end of the casting period, the four contestants with the most votes will receive a 'Golden Ticket' to the show at the Theatre Trianon in central Paris.
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