Season 5

The fifth season of SuperStar was launched on Future TV on the 24 February 2008. This year, many changes occurred, such as the fact that the Results shows would happen on Thursdays instead of Mondays, so it will allow the audience to have five days to vote for their favorite contestants. Egyptian singer and SuperStar alumni Wael Mansour would host the show with Miss Lebanon 2004 Majdala Khatar, replacing Egyptian anchorman Ayman Qaissouni. Also, the introduction of a new female judge, Jihane, who joined Elias Rahbani, Ziad Boutros and Abdallah El Qaoud. This year, 12 contestants would get into the final stage. On 24 July 2008, Lebanese contestant Elie Bitar won the contest against Saudi contestant Abdelmajeed Ibrahim. Even though running for five seasons, SuperStar was eclipsed by rival show Star Academy on LBC in the Middle East, in terms of popularity and ratings, after only its first season. It has been surpassed by Star Academy as the number one Arab show, and did not move the Arab world the way it did during the first season. Future TV subsequently lost the Idol licence to the MBC network, which in 2011 relaunched the programme as Arab Idol on MBC 1.