Do you know how to become a popstar? Are you really sure? Do you know what you need? Talent? Cash? An agent? Connections to anybody?

The ORF, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, has been searching for the one and only future Austrian pop singer. Last fall, more than 1700 young people competed for the „Starmania“-contest in the local ORF studios in each province. They had to show their musical talent to a committee: most of them were dismissed, but some of them qualified.

At least, 12 finalists from nearly each part of Austria met in Vienna: Niddl, Livia, Beate, Vera, Christina, Lukas, Thomas, Markus, Boris, Michael - and one girl as well as one boy from Burgenland: Elisa Zsivkovits, a 16-year-old student from Stinatz and Andreas Schneider, 19, from St. Margarethen, who served in the Austrian army right at that time.

It has been a hard job for those twelve, when they met every Monday in the ORF studios and worked until Friday. They were coached by professionals, improved their style, their dancing choreographies and even the way they sang. Working together also means spending most of the time with your new friends, who of course are also competitors, and being separated from your family, your girlfriend or boyfriend, for weeks. It is not until weekend that the youngsters could go back to their hometown and relax.

But what about the character of competition? One Friday in December, the Glorious Twelve started the final project: since that time they have been singing one song each live on TV and amused a really enthusiastic audience in the studio. Both, audience in Vienna and at home, voted for the favorites - and the one, who was supported least of all, got dismissed so far. But there was also a fabulous detail in it: those who got ahead in the competition decided in an internal voting and brought one of those two back - the so-called friendship ticket.
Meanwhile the show is over - at last two boys and one girl had qualified for the great final: Christina Stürmer from Upper Austria, Boris Uran from Carinthia and Michael Tschuggnall from Tyrol.
The final show on Friday, February 21, turned out into an enormous, unexpected success. You could read everything about the singers, the „starmaniacs“ and Arabella Kiesbauer, who was presenting the show, in almost every Austrian paper already some days before. Imagine: more than 1,6 mio. people were watching the performances on TV - this is about 20% of the Austrian population!!!! It’s hard to believe, but more than 5 mio. votes (!!!) via phone calls and short messages by mobile phones were registered! It seems that a whole nation was paralysed by this masterpiece of TV entertainment.

Finally Michael Tschuggnall, a 19-year-old student turned out to be the winner and the „star of the year“. He certainly impressed the audience with a love song to his girlfriend, that was composed by himself. Michael is now going to release a CD with the well-known producer Peter Wolf in Los Angeles, who actually was born and grew up in Austria.

Let’s see - maybe he’ll really be a pop star once. Good luck and hold on, Michael!

Yours Walter Dujmovits, jr.