Season 1
Supersterre is an Afrikaans language singing talent show created by South African singer Patricia Lewis and produced by Lewis and her husband Mark Whitehead in which contestants work with a celebrity coach each week and are eliminated by public vote until one winner remains.
The show premiered in 2005 as a four-minute insert on Patricia's television show Blonde Ambisie (Blonde Ambition) and developed into a show of its own in 2006.
The series proper premiered on SABC2 on Friday 25 August 2006, at 19h30. See "Seasons" below for seasonal broadcast dates and times.
Season 1
The competition starts with a country-wide search for voices across South Africa and the series focuses on the training and performances of the contestants chosen as the finalists.
In addition to being a competition between contestants, the show is also a competition between established South African artists who each mentor two of the finalists and coach them through the process.
Each episode features the contestants working on a song which they perform for a live audience, as well as their relationships with each other, their celebrities and ultimately the judges.
Judges include well-known South African singers, actors and entertainers and each week one or two contestants are eliminated by them until there are two left.
During the course of the competition viewers can participate by SMSing for their favourite contestants, which will result in one contestant who's left, returning for a final three finale showdown.
If the most popular SMS contestant is already one of the final two, the contestant with the second highest number of SMS votes will return.
The returning contestant is called the SuperNova and the public's vote for them counts towards 51% of the judges final decision.
All episodes of the show - except for the finale - are pre-recorded and and the live performances are filmed on Sundays at the Mardis Theatre at Carnival City, Johannesburg.
The final episode is entitled the Supersterre Extravagana. This second season finale was recorded two days before its broadcast and featured performances by the three semi-finalists, the winner of Supersterre 1 (Caelee) and the celebrity mentors.
The winning contestant won a recording contract with Sony BMG as well as various other prizes to the value of a million rand and the celebrity who helped them won a million rand property at a game farm, sponsored by South African singer Steve Hofmeyr.
The show was won Shaun Tait who was 14 years old at the time. His winning mentor was Nadine.
Seasons
(All seasons aired exclusively on SABC2, on Fridays at 19h30)
Season 1 (12 episodes)
Premiere: 25 August 2006 | Finale: 10 November 2006
Season 2 (13 episodes)
Premiere: 7 September 2007 | Finale: 30 November 2007
Season 3 (13 episodes)
Premiere: 19 March 2010 | Finale: 11 June 2010