Star Awards 2023

The Star Awards 2023 ceremony, the 28th edition of Star Awards, presented by the Mediacorp, took place on 9 April 2023 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. During the gala, Mediacorp presented Star Awards in 12 categories honoring Mediacorp's employees, minor awards in four categories and sponsored awards in two categories. The ceremony was televised on Channel 8. Lee Teng and Taiwanese actress-singer Matilda Tao, hosted the show.

Mediacorp also hosted a gala dinner, held at JW Marriott Hotel on 30 March 2023 and hosted by Hazelle Teo and Dennis Chew.^[1][2] Five Star Awards were also presented during the dinner.

Your World in Mine won six awards, including Best Drama Serial. The Breakfast Quartet - LOVE 972, Dishing with Chris Lee, Forgotten Children, Star Awards 2022 and Mr Zhou's Ghost Stories @ Singapore Sightings won one award each.

Nominations for the professional awards were announced on 15 February.^[3] Slice of life drama Your World in Mine had the most nominations (nine) and won the most number of awards (six) including Best Drama Serial; many of the nominations were oriented towards younger actors, especially first-timers for Best Actor Richie Koh, Desmond Ng and Ayden Sng, as well as Brandon Wong being the sole nominee to also be nominated for the Best Supporting Actor award; Koh's win also set a record on becoming the youngest recipient of the lead actor role. For the first time since 2001, Huang Biren and Zoe Tay were nominated for Best Actress in the same ceremony, and with both actresses having a tie for the most wins at four at that time, the former would go on to win her fifth award.^[4][5]

In the entertainment categories, Christopher Lee won the Best Programme Host, ending a five-year streak previously held by frequent winner Quan Yi Fong, and Lee becoming the third recipient for the award after Quan and Lee Teng. Das DD also become the first artiste of Indian origin to be nominated for and subsequently win a Performance Award. Both Star Awards and Love 972 The Breakfast Quartet continued their winning streak for their Variety Special and Radio Programme, respectively.^[4]

The voting categories were announced on 6 March; while MyPick! category was returned for its second year, in a history first for Star Awards, voting categories were also heavily emphasized and competitive, and there was no cap on the number of artistes eligible for the Top Ten Most Popular Favourite Artistes award as criteria were relaxed, along with the introduction of the Top Three Most Popular Rising Stars award, a non-gender-affiliated voting award for artistes with no more than five years of showbiz experience. In an official statement, the award criteria for "All-Time Favourite Artiste" was also revised, such that wins from the Most Popular Rising Stars Award would count towards the 10 wins needed to be conferred the All-Time Favourite Artiste.^[6] The three recipients of the inaugural award were Gao Mei Gui, Richie Koh and Ayden Sng, along with six other first Top 10 recipients Jeremy Chan, Chen Bi Yu, Chen Ning, Jeff Goh, Tasha Low and Denise Camillia Tan. Of the four artistes, Ann Kok, Jesseca Liu, Yvonne Lim, and Pornsak, each with nine Top 10 Most Popular Artistes wins at the time, only Kok and Liu were nominated for, and would go on to win their tenth award. Felicia Chin and Rebecca Lim, the latter being the ninth celebrity to win the Top 10 Most Popular Artistes for ten consecutive ceremonies, were the year's recipients for "All-time Favourite Artiste".

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.^[a]

This is given to an artist who has received a total of ten "Top 10 Most Popular Male / Female Artiste Awards" and/or "Most Popular Rising Star Award," which do not have to be consecutive. The artiste will receive an All-Time Favourite Artiste Award after winning the tenth popularity award.^[8][9]

• Winner will be listed first and highlighted in color.

As with all ceremonies since 2017, nominees will participate in a nationwide poll of 1,000 people from Singapore's population, with an equitable breakdown across various age groups ("Popularity Survey") and public voting, to determine the winners.^[10] The voting weightage was also changed to 20%-80% respectively.^[11][12]

Voting was held from 6 March until 9 April 8pm during the ceremony. For the first time ever, there was no maximum cap on the number of artistes eligible to be nominated as a total of 75 artistes (36 females and 39 males) were nominated for the voting category. As with ceremonies since 2021 to promote audience participation, the 10 votes per day restriction was lifted during the final hours of voting, occurring on the actual day starting at 12am.

In addition to the traditional Top 10, this award is aimed at junior artistes with no more than five years of showbiz experience; unlike the Top 10, this award is not gender-affiliated and only the three artistes with the most votes would win the award. Wins in this category will count towards the cumulative number of wins for the "All-Time Favourite Artistes".^{[13][14][15] [16]}

A minor award ceremony called MyPICK! which had been presented for the second consecutive year since 2022.

The public voted to select the winners of the MY PICK! categories. Voting began at 12:00 p.m. on March 6, 2023. Voting was free and open to all voters with a valid meCONNECT account. Each voter could only vote once every day in each award category. The results were unveiled on April 9, 2023, during the Star Awards 2023 - Backstage Marathon.^[17]

Bioskin Most Charismatic Artiste Award - Red Carpet
Chan Brothers My Star Guide Award - Backstage

Winning category obtained are marked with bold.

The ceremony had broken several traditions in the past, as some Professional award categories were presented on 30 March, 11 days prior to the main award ceremony. Like in a statement issued by Mediacorp, the ceremony follows a hybrid between ceremony and concert to emphasize the entertainment industry, hence the move of some of the awards during the actual day. On 9 March, the hosts were announced while the guest performers include Jam Hsiao and Sammi Cheng.^[18][19]

The Best Newcomer award was renamed to "Best Rising Star" (最佳潜力星), and a new voting award named "Most Popular Rising Star Award" (最受欢迎潜力星), along with similar eligibility requirements for the Top 10 Most Popular Artistes, aimed for artistes with no more than five years of career experience (as of 1 January 2022) was introduced. The criteria for the "All-Time Favourite Artiste" was also modified such that wins for the "Most Popular Rising Star Award" will count towards the cumulative total of 10 needed to be conferred the "All-Time Favourite Artiste" award. The Top 10 Most Popular Artistes also had an unlimited number of nominations along with similar criteria of the former, with artistes of at least five years of experience.

The Best Short-Form Drama Series 最佳短篇戏剧, "Perfect Combo 最合拍搭档" and "Most Attention Seeking New-gen Host 最强镜新晋主持人", was not presented this year.

The revisions to the Top 10 Most Popular Category have aroused controversy because the category will no longer be limited to its regular 20 Male and Female performers; instead, the category will nominate every artist who had contributed to Singaporean television in the past year. The rules and conditions for this year's Top 10 Most Popular Artistes award were extensively open to people who had contributed not only in Mediacorp Television, but also in Mediacorp Radio Broadcasting. Anyone with more than five years of experience in screen acting and/or screen/audio hosting as of January 1, 2022 and who meets at least one of the following requirements is eligible:^[20]

• In at least one eligible programme and had played the lead or were the major host.
• In at least three eligible programmes and had played a supporting part or hosted an episode.
• Appears in 30 episodes across all eligible programmes.

Artistes that have only appeared in one drama series as a lead role may also be nominated in this category. Examples are "Sisters Stand Tall", where Malaysian actress "Jojo Goh" and Chinese actress "Jin Meng Yang Zi" were nominated for the award as well, despite not being under Mediacorp staff. Majority of the nominees of the Top 10 popularity awards were radio DJs as well, as they can be nominated just by being the host of an eligible radio programme. However, DJ "Kimberly Wang" from the English radio station 987FM was also nominated for this category.^[20][10]