The Arena (TV series)

The Arena
Presented by	Jason Chan, Adrian Pang
Country of origin	Singapore
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	23
Production
Executive producers	Ignatius Teo Julie Sim-Chew
Producers	Tan Ing How Prem Anand Lindsay Jialin Monica Goh Vivian Chew
Running time	60 Minutes
Original release
Network	Mediacorp Channel 5
Release	9 January 2007 (2007-01-09) – 26 May 2008 (2008-05-26)

The Arena is a debate-style television show produced by Mediacorp Channel 5 in Singapore. Two seasons of the show were broadcast, with Season one held on January–March 2007, and season two on March–May 2008. The show involves teams of students from secondary schools in Singapore debating against each other on issues of topical interest. The show is hosted by Adrian Pang in the first season, before replaced with Jason Chan in Season two.

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. (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 series has spawned with two international versions, in Thailand and Vietnam.

Rules

In each episode, two schools, each with three speakers per school, engaged on a debate, a process that involves formal discourse, discussion, and oral addresses on a particular topic or collection of topic, which varies each episode. Each match consist of three rounds and one rebuttal round in-between the second and third round. Only one speaker may participate in one round at a time, while all three speakers must participate in a rebuttal round. In season one, the time limit was 3.5-4-4.5 minutes, while in season two, the structure is standardized to four minutes each.

Participating speakers stood on the central podium, 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). Each speaker took turns to address their speeches and can end early if desired. The opposing speaker, at any time during their speech, may interrupt their debate to prove their points of information at a press of a button, during which the current speaker for the round is not allowed to interrupt or oppose theirs until their challenge ended. Each team is allowed a 1.5 minute rebuttal time (indicated in as "rebuttal bank"), which is accumulated in succeeding rounds; when the rebuttal is in effect, their current time limit is frozen.

The rebuttal round (called Quickfire round in Season two) involves all speakers participating in a roundtable discussion. Unlike the three rounds, the rebuttal time is not used and the 1.5 minute time limit run concurrently, similar to a Chess clock; one at a time, each speaker took turns to debate, and they must press the button on the central podium to end their turn before passing their turn to their opponent. Each speaker may take only one turn during the round.

After each round, the panel of judges will evaluate each speaker's debate and award points accordingly. In season one, the scores are 20-24-28-28 respectively, and the school with more points after the debate ended wins. In season two, while each round is worth 20 points with another 20 points for Team Strategy Score, these scores are not used, but instead by a majority of (two out of three) judge's votes.

Winning schools advance to the next round while the best performing losing schools after all the matches for the current phase will advance as wildcard. In total, there are six schools in the quarterfinals, then reduced to four in the semifinals, and then two in the finale. In season two, as there are 12 schools and with a change of match deciding format, there are no wildcards in the first round (though there is a Wildcard in the quarterfinal).

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 – Nominated Member of Parliament and former Miss Singapore Universe
• Ashraf Safdar – Journalist from the Today newspaper and member of the Debate Association Singapore Executive Committee

Guest judges for the show included Singapore celebrities like Tan Kheng Hua 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). Season two added Ashraf Safdar and Gaurav Keerthi.

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.

Results

  The school won the match.

  The school lost the match, but advanced by wildcard.

  The school lost the match and was eliminated.

Season 1 (2007)

Episode	Topic	Schools
		Left		Right
First round
1 (9 January)	Hey Good Looking, You're a Winner! Good looks triumph over effort.	Loyang Secondary School	51	49	Raffles Institution
2 (16 January)	Selfish? Yes We Are! Today's youth are motivated by self-centeredness alone.	Methodist Girls' School	72	28	CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School
3 (30 January)	Don't Try to be Funny! Our society does not encourage a sense of humour.	Xinmin Secondary School	57	43	Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School
4 (6 February)	Singapore, a Self-Service Nation! Local service standards have a long way to go.	United World College of South East Asia	74	26	Nanyang Girls' High School
5 (13 February)	Teach First Sex Later! Protecting our youth from sex now causes social problems later.	Hwa Chong Institution	78	22	CHIJ Katong Convent
Quarterfinals
6 (20 February)	To Hide or Not to Hide? Internet anonymity is bad for us all.	Xinmin Secondary School	45	55	Loyang Secondary School
7 (27 February)	Where Do We Stand? Singapore's youth are politically apathetic.	Raffles Institution	54	46	Hwa Chong Institution
8 (6 March)	Mother Knows Best Mothers should stay at home to raise children.	United World College of South East Asia	80	20	Methodist Girls' School
Semifinals
9 (13 March)	The Pressing Issue Bloggers are becoming more influential than journalists.	Loyang Secondary School	11	89	Hwa Chong Institution
10 (20 March)	First Among Equals Singapore's education system breeds elitism.	Raffles Institution	6	94	United World College of South East Asia
Final
11 (27 March)	Modern Softies Youth today are less prepared for future challenges than their parents' generation.	Hwa Chong Institution	22	78	United World College of South East Asia

Season 2 (2008)

The defending champions, United World College of South East Asia, was initially selected but did not take part this season as their student examination clashed with their planned recording dates. An award was given for the Best Speaker of the Series, which went to Nicholas Quah of Raffles Institution.

Episode	Topic	Schools
		Left		Right
First round
1 (10 March)	Going for gold, but on our steam only Only native-born citizens should be allowed to represent Singapore in international sports	Raffles Institution	2	1	CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls' School
2 (17 March)	Saving the environment, just a load of hot air! Singapore should be playing a bigger part in the battle against global warming	Global Indian International School	2	1	Jurong Secondary School
3 (24 March)	A First World city, but without social graciousness Singaporeans lack the civic-mindedness of other modern societies	Hwa Chong Institution	3	0	CHIJ St Joseph's Convent
4 (31 March)	Intelligent clones, but not ready for the world Singapore's education system does not prepare students for the challenges of the working world	Dunman Secondary School	3	0	St Joseph's Institution
5 (7 April)	New media, new dangers! The Internet has brought more harm than good to today's youth	Madrasah Al-Maarif Al-Islamiah	0	3	Singapore American School
6 (14 April)	Blame the parents for delinquent children! Parents should also be held responsible for crimes committed by their children	Fairfield Methodist Secondary School	1	2	Nanyang Girls' High School
Quarterfinals
7 (21 April)	Just a little red dot with an identity crisis! Singapore suffers from the lack of a clear national identity	Hwa Chong Institution	2	1	Singapore American School
8 (28 April)	With great exposure comes great responsibility! The media should stop giving publicity to celebrities who have poor morals	Raffles Institution	3	0	Dunman Secondary School
9 (5 May)	A shared security Singapore should introduce National Service for women	Jurong Secondary School	0	3	Nanyang Girls' High School
Semifinals
10 (12 May)	Break the glass ceiling! Organisations should be forced to place more women in senior positions	Raffles Institution	2	1	Hwa Chong Institution
11 (19 May)	The promise of science Science is progressing too fast for the good of society	Nanyang Girls' High School	3	0	Singapore American School
Final
12 (26 May)	Too much of a good thing! Freedom of speech has gone too far on the Web	Nanyang Girls' High School	0	3	Raffles Institution

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, 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 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 (Australia) and Nutty Boy (Brazil).

External links

• The Arena Official Website
• MediaCorp discussion forum for The Arena II
• Debate Association Singapore - the external debate consultants for The Arena