Star Awards () are awards for artistic and technical merit where Mediacorp recognises entertainers under their employment for outstanding performances of the year.mediacorps website
History
The first Star Awards ceremony was held on 26 February 1994 at the Caldecott Broadcast Centre Mediacorp TV Theatre, with an audience of approximately 500 people. A total of 16 awards were presented during the ceremony, inclusive of Top 5 Most Popular Male Artistes and Female Artistes, Most Popular Male Newcomer and Female Newcomer, Most Popular Drama Serial and Most Popular Theme Song. The Most Popular Male Artiste and Female Artiste were then awarded to a final winner from the Top 5 Most Popular Male and Female Artistes accordingly. Li Nanxing and Zoe Tay were the first winners of The Most Popular Male Artiste and Female Artiste. Most Popular Drama Serial went to The Unbeatables I.
Milestones In 1995, professional awards were included, such as the Best Actor, Best Actress awards. Li Nanxing and Fann Wong won the inaugural Best Actor and Best Actress awards.
The Special Achievement Award was also introduced with Xiang Yun being first awarded. The award was given until 2003 before it was reintroduced in 2018
In 1996, the Best Drama Serial was introduced and Tofu Street won it for an outstanding overall performance. The nominees are determined by a team of judges employed by Mediacorp and winners are selected by a majority vote from the entire judging panel. Chew Chor Meng, Li Nanxing, Terence Cao, Sean Say, Desmond Sim, Chen Liping, Chen Xiuhuan, Pan Lingling, Aileen Tan, and Zoe Tay received the award as the 10 Most Popular Artistes, with five awards given to male and female artistes; these artistes were awarded by popularity among the television audience based from the public via telephone and SMS text voting. Since 1997, the number of recipients for each category were expanded to ten.
During the 1998 ceremony, variety categories were introduced to include variety programs and the hosts.
In 2008, the ceremony was postponed to April 2009. Prior to 2008, the ceremony was held at the end of the year for shows broadcast during the year. As nominations might be late for those being shown at the end of the year, the ceremony was postponed to include all the shows broadcast for the previous year.
In 2004, the Special Achievement Award was removed and a new award, All-Time Favourite Artiste, was introduced. Artistes who had won the Top 10 Most Popular Male or Female Artiste awards ten times would no longer be eligible to contest the award again and will be conferred with the All-Time Favourite Artiste award instead.
2010–2020s The 2010 ceremony introduced new awards like Favourite Male Character and Female Characters and the Rocket Award, focusing on artistes' contributions and improvement. The Honorary TV Award was posthumously presented at the 2013 ceremony to Huang Wenyong who had died the day before the first show. 20th Star Awards ceremony in 2014 introduced the Social Media Award and The Most Popular Regional Artiste Award. 2014 saw revisions in award category quotas, affecting the presentation of certain awards like Best News Presenter and Best Newcomer. The 2015 ceremonies marked the last time they were held at the Caldecott Broadcast Centre before moving to the Mediacorp campus. During Show 1 of the presentation, Jeanette Aw emerged as a major winner, securing victories across the majority of categories that night. The 2016 ceremony saw changes in award presentation and the last occurrence of online Favourite award categories and the first cremeony which introduced the Best Evergreen Artiste Award. A new category, 'Best Programme Host', was created with a merger of two hosting awards (Best Variety Show Host and Best Info-Ed Programme Host) due to a similar presentation style in both the variety and info-ed programmes, as well as similar eligibility criteria. The technical categories were moved to the backstage during the 2016 ceremony. Consequently, these significant aspects of the event were omitted from the broadcast, limiting the recognition and appreciation of the technical excellence displayed by the nominees and winners in their respective fields. At the 2017 ceremony, online voting categories were also streamlined, by putting more emphasis placed on the Top 10 Most Popular Artiste awards, while the Favourite Male and Female Character, and Favourite Onscreen Couple awards, as well as Social Media Award were dropped due to the change. Due to the switch in measuring television viewership, the Top Rated Variety Programme and Top Rated Drama Serial awards were also suspended. The 2018 ceremony saw revamps towards the Top 10 Popularity Awards, whereas a poll of 1,000 people representing a wide demographic across Singapore's population, were conducted independently by an accredited market research company, will be used to shortlist the nominations. The results of the poll weighed 50% towards the combined total, while the other 50% comes from the public vote (with 50% weighed on telepoll and online votes each). Eligibility criteria for performance and popularity categories were also revised, opening up to non-Mediacorp artistes; eligible artistes were now required to lead a role in a programme or play as a supporting role/assistant host in at least three eligible programmes or at least 30 episodes out of all eligible programmes, whichever applicable. Best Evergreen Artiste were also accessed on veteran artistes based on a full calendar year, as opposed to a single programme. The Special Achievement Award was reinstated in lieu of the All-Time Favourite Artiste as there were no eligible artistes who had won their 10th Top 10 Most Popular Artistes award at the previous ceremony. The 2019 ceremony, coinciding the silver jubilee of the ceremony on 14 April 2019, introduced two categories to feature miniseries, which were the Best Short-form Drama Serial and Best Short-form Variety Programme. The Honorary TV Award was not presented that year despite the death of Aloysius Pang, who had died earlier on 23 January that year.
2020–present The 2021 ceremony, initially announced to be held on 26 April 2020 and announced that the event is postponed to the second half of 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, making it the first ceremony in 13 years since the revision of the eligibility period in 2008 where the ceremony would not be held on the month of April; On 7 August 2020, the ceremony was pushed to 18 April 2021 and expanding the eligibility to include 2020 programs, resulting in the increase of nominations for most of the award categories, from the traditional five to seven. The ceremony also introduces radio awards coinciding the 85th anniversary of radio broadcasting in Singapore. For the first time since 2014, the award ceremony was announced to be held outside studios, located on the Jewel Changi Airport and Terminal 4. The 2022 ceremony saw the launch of the My Pick! Awards; Favourite Couple Pairing (CP), the Male Show Stealer, the Female Show Stealer, Most Hated Villain, Perfect Combo and Most Attention-Seeking New Gen Host. The awards were given out during the Backstage Live segment of the 2022 ceremony. The award ceremonies held in 2022, 2023 and 2026 ended with the presentation of the Best Actor and Actress award, but recent ceremonies' last award would be Top 10 Most Popular Male or Female Artistes award, a popularity contest open for all eligible nominated artistes regardless of their talent management agency. The 2023 ceremony saw introductions of the Most Popular Rising Star award and revamps towards the Top 10 Popularity Awards. Nominees are no longer shortlisted into the Top 40 nominees, instead they are eligible as long as they have acted in a Lead role or main host in an eligible programme or a Supporting role or episodic host in 3 eligible programme/30 episodes in total across all eligible programme, while having more than 5 years of professional screen acting and/or screen/audio hosting experience before the award ceremony, Most Popular Rising Star have similar requirements, but they can be nominated with being a Supporting role or episodic host in a single eligible programme, while having 5 or less years of professional screen acting and/or screen/audio hosting (excluding cameo appearances/experiences before turning 18 years of age), and being at least 18 years of age to be nominated. Star Awards 2024 marks the removal of the Best Evergreen Artiste Award by Mediacorp, and believes that artistic excellence transcends age. As a result, veteran artistes are now valued based on their contributions across various acting and program categories in the nominations. Additionally, Mediacorp introduced a new category during this year's awards ceremony: "Best Audio Personality," aimed at recognizing outstanding hosts in the audio industry. This initiative aims to provide greater opportunities for DJs and audio presenters to participate and be acknowledged for their contributions. Star Awards 2025 marked the second time in 30 years that Chow Yun-fat was invited to the ceremony to present the Most Popular Artiste award. It also marked a historic milestone, as the Best Actress accolade was awarded for the first time to a non-Mediacorp artiste and non-Singaporean — Jessica Hsuan. Meanwhile, Christopher Lee emerged as the biggest winner of the night, taking home three awards and making history in the process.
Theme tune Since 1995, the signature theme tune titled "Linking the World", composed by Christopher Evans. It was subsequently modified to have different renditions of the same tune for subsequent ceremonies.
Since 2019, the original theme tune was re-composed as "Starlight" 《星光》, with a new rendition and lyrics. This new rendition was used as the opener for the ceremony since 2021.
Trophy Since its establishment in 1994, the Star Awards trophy has undergone four distinct design changes, with a fifth introduced in 2025
1994: The trophy featured a transparent column topped with a silver, multi-faceted star. 1995 to 1997: The trophy consisted of a column topped with a gold star. 1998 to 1999: The trophy took on a conical shape with a large star. 2000 to present: Designed in Shanghai, each trophy weighs 4 kilograms and is valued at $1000. Its design is formed by the crystalline shape of the letter "S," which, when viewed from another angle, resembles the letter "A," forming the abbreviation for "Star Awards." The trophy's color varies each year (green, purple, gold, brown, blue, etc.). 2025: A special edition of the trophy, crowned with a radiant coat of golden sheen, marks this design with distinction — a gleaming tribute to excellence and legacy.
List of Star Awards ceremonies Here is a complete list of Mediacorp Star Awards ceremonies.
The latest ceremony, Star Awards 2026, held on 19 April 2026.
Venues
In 1994, the first Star Awards were presented at the Caldecott Broadcast Centre, Mediacorp TV Theatre and the following year until 2015; however, seven ceremonies were held outside the studios: in 1996, the venue of Star Awards changed to World Trade Centre, Harbour Pavilion and was hosted by Guo Liang and Yvette Tsui. In 2006, the ceremony was held at St James Power Station, near VivoCity and Sentosa. Between 2010 and 2014, the ceremony was also held outside location while the show was split into two, with the first show held at Caldecott Hill, while the second show was held at Resorts World Sentosa (2010 and 2011), Marina Bay Sands (2012 and 2013) and Suntec City (2014).