HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''The Arena'' is a
debate Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred in public meetings, a ...
-style
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
show produced by Mediacorp Channel 5 in
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
. 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 The United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) is an independent international school in Singapore, and is a member of the United World College (UWC) movement. The school provides a K–12 education consisting of five interlinking elemen ...
, who defeated
Hwa Chong Institution Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) is an independent secondary educational institution in Bukit Timah, Singapore. Formed by the merger of The Chinese High School (1919–2004) and Hwa Chong Junior College (1974–2005) in 2005, it provides secondary edu ...
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 Raffles Institution (RI) is an independent educational institution in Singapore. Founded in 1823, it is the oldest school in the country. It provides secondary education for boys only from Year 1 to Year 4, and pre-university education for both ...
, who defeated
Nanyang Girls' High School Nanyang Girls' High School (NYGH) is an independent girls' secondary school in Bukit Timah, Singapore. Founded in 1917, it is one of the oldest schools in the country. NYGH offers a six-year Integrated Programme, which allows students to skip the ...
in the final. ''The Arena'' was one of the four nominees for the 2007
International Emmy Award The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...
in the 'Children and Young People' category, alongside shows from Australia,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
and
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
. (The winning show in the category was ''The Magic Tree'' from Poland.) ''The Arena'' was also one of six nominees for the 'Best Game or Quiz Programme' at the 2008
Asian Television Awards The Asian Television Awards (launched in 1996), is an appreciation to recognize and reward programming and production excellence in the Asian television industry. Held every December, the Awards comprises 56 categories across news, documentarie ...
.


''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:'' In both Round One and the Quarter-Finals, the highest-scoring losing team also advanced to the next round as a 'Wildcard'.


Topics and results for each episode


Debate format

The format of debates for ''The Arena'' Season 1 was created specially for the show and differed from other competitive debate formats. Each team had three speakers. The first speaker on each team spoke for 3 minutes and 30 seconds, the second speaker for 4 minutes, and the third speaker for 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Each set of two speeches was considered to be one 'Round' within the debate, and each 'Round' was judged separately. Speakers stood in the middle of the room, and spoke directly to one opponent from the other team (rather than facing to the audience and the judges as in most other debate formats). This opponent was allowed interrupt the speech with points of information (POIs – a feature of both the World Schools style and
British Parliamentary style British Parliamentary style is a major form of academic debate that originated in Liverpool in the mid 1800s. It has gained wide support globally and is the official format of the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC). Rules British P ...
of debating). However unlike other debate formats which use POIs, the speaker is not allowed to decline to hear a point when it was offered by the opposing speaker. Each team had a 1-minute and 30 second POI 'Rebuttal Bank', which they could use over the course of the three speeches by the other team. In between the second and third speeches of the two teams, there was an additional 3-minute 'Group Rebuttal Round' involving all 6 debaters in a series of short arguments and immediate responses on the topic. Each episode was judged by four judges. Each judge decided which team they thought has won each 'Round' within the debate, and the team with the most points at the end was declared the winner.


Judges

Each episode was judged by three regular judges and one guest judge. The regular judges on the show were: * K.K. Seet – Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore *
Eunice Olsen Eunice Elizabeth Olsen (born 24 October 1977) is a Singaporean actress, media host, communications and media trainer, media producer, and businesswoman. She is a former Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) in Singapore for two terms, a publ ...
Nominated Member of Parliament A Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) is a member of the Parliament of Singapore who is appointed by the president. They are not affiliated to any political party and do not represent any constituency. There are currently nine NMPs in the P ...
and former
Miss Singapore Universe Miss Universe Singapore is a beauty pageant and organization that selects the Singapore official representative to the Miss Universe pageant. The reigning Miss Universe Singapore is Carissa Yap, who was crowned on 17 October 2022, at Caldwell ...
* Ashraf Safdar – Journalist from the ''
Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...
'' newspaper and member of th
Debate Association Singapore
Executive Committee Guest judges for the show included Singapore celebrities like
Tan Kheng Hua Tan Kheng Hua (; born 17 January 1963) is a Singaporean actress. She is best known for her supporting role in the 2018 film '' Crazy Rich Asians'' and for the martial arts television series ''Kung Fu'' in 2021. Career Tan acquired an interes ...
and Daisy Irani, and Gaurav Keerthi, who was also from the Debate Association. The guest judge for the final (and the only guest judge to appear on the show twice) was Viswa Sadasivan, the Chairman of the Political Development Feedback Group of Singapore's Feedback Unit, who is also the Chairman of the Right Angle Group and a former TV presenter. For the preliminary selection rounds of the show (which were not televised), the teams were also judged by Geetha Creffield (ex-President of Debate Association Singapore and former coach of the Singapore national schools debating team) and Mark Gabriel (Secretary of the World Schools Debating Council and Tournament Director of the Singapore Secondary Schools Debating Championships).


Reaction and criticism

The show was generally well received by the public and the press, though some criticisms were also raised by the Singapore media. One area of the show that came in for criticism was the debate topics, some of which were thought to be too one-sided. Shortly after the show began airing, '' 8 Days'' magazine criticised the topic used for the preliminary round match-up between Methodist Girls' School and CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School ('Selfish? Yes We Are! – Today's youth are motivated by self-centeredness alone'), saying that it was significantly easier for the team arguing against the topic (MGS – who won by a 72-28 scoreline). The scoring system, which required judges to allocate all their points for each round to one team, even if they felt that team was only slightly better, also came in for criticism. The scoreline of the second semi-final between the United World College of South East Asia and Raffles Institution, which ended in a 94-6 victory for UWC, was particularly highlighted as being an unfair reflection on the closeness of the match-up. The show concluded around the same time as a series of letters from members of the public were published in the Forum section of ''
The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was establish ...
'', discussing the relative merits of Singapore's education system and that of international schools in Singapore. A number of these letters made reference to UWC's success in the competition, some of them arguing that this was an indication that the school was better at producing students with stronger thinking skills and presentation ability than local schools, and others disputing this.


Emmy Award nomination

''The Arena'' was one of the four nominees for the 2007
International Emmy Award The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...
in the 'Children and Young People' category. The award was won by the Polish show ''The Magic Tree''. The other two nominees in the category were ''
Mortified ''Mortified'' is an Australian children's television series, co-produced by the Australian Children's Television Foundation and Enjoy Entertainment for the Nine Network Australia. The series premiered on 30 June 2006 and ended on 9 May 2007 wi ...
'' (Australia) and ''Nutty Boy'' (Brazil).


''The Arena II''

A second season of ''The Arena'' was broadcast from March–May 2008, and ran for 12 episodes. Jason Chan has replaced Adrian Pang as the host for season 2 of the show. The number of teams participating in the first round was increased to 12. There was no 'Wildcard' in the first round, but at the quarter-final stage the highest-scoring losing team gained a spot in the semi-finals. The Grand Final was telecast on 26 May 2008, and was won by Raffles Institution defeated who the team from Nanyang Girls' High School. An award was given for the Best Speaker of the Series, which went to Nicholas Quah of Raffles Institution.


Changes to the debate and judging format

A new scoring system was introduced for ''The Arena II'', with judges being able to allocate up to 20 points to each team for their performance in each round, plus an extra 'Team Strategy Score' of up to 20 points at the end of the debate. The number of judges was reduced to three judges per episode. The winning team was determined by the number of judges who awarded the win to each team (with the winning team claiming either a unanimous 3-0 decision or a 2-1 split decision). The lengths of all speeches was also standardised at 4 minutes per speaker. The 'Group Rebuttal Round' was renamed the 'Quick-Fire Round', and remained 3 minutes long. At the end of each episode, the judges selected one of the debaters as the best speaker of the debate.


Progress of teams

12 schools were selected to participate in ''The Arena II'' following audition rounds in October–November 2007. (Defending-champions the United World College of South East Asia elected not to enter ''The Arena II'' as the planned recording dates coincided with their students' examinations.) ''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 Hakeem, Jarret Huang, Ashish Kumar and Nicholas Quah.


References


External links


The Arena Official WebsiteMediaCorp discussion forum for ''The Arena II''

Debate Association Singapore - the external debate consultants for The Arena
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arena, The Singaporean television series Non-fiction television series 2007 Singaporean television series debuts Channel 5 (Singapore) original programming