| Presenter: | Joey Fatone Melissa Peterman |
| Starring: | Steve Dorff and the Bee Hive, CMT Ray Chew and the Groove, NBC The Honey Bees, NBC |
| Creator: | Phil Gurin Bob Horowitz |
| Director: |
|
| Executive Producer: | Phil Gurin Bob Horowitz |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Company: | Juma Entertainment Singing Bee Enterprises The Gurin Company |
| Location: | CBS Studio Center, Studio City California CMT |
| Network: | NBC |
| Network2: | CMT |
| Num Seasons: | 5 |
| Num Episodes: | 66 (total) |
The Singing Bee is a sing-along game show that originally aired on NBC and then CMT. Combining karaoke singing with a spelling bee-style competition, this show features contestants trying to remember the lyrics to popular songs. Originally slated to begin with a six episode season during late 2007, it launched early in reaction to Fox's competing Don't Forget the Lyrics![1]
| + CMT Version | ||||||
| Member | Genre | Role | Seasons | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| Melissa Peterman | Host | |||||
| Jared Johnson | Country Music | Singer | ||||
| Bobby Tomberlin | Country Music | Singer | ||||
| Kim Parent | Variety Music | Singer | ||||
| Roger Cain | Acoustic and Electric Guitarist | |||||
| Steve Dorff | Pianist | |||||
| Scotty Kormos | Drummer | |||||
| Tony Love | Bassist | |||||
| Jeff Vincent | Pianist | |||||
| Kenley Shea | Variety Music | Singer | ||||
| Paula MacNeill | Variety Music | Singer | ||||
| Kimmy Keyes | Variety Music | Singer | ||||
| Storm Lee | Rock Music | Singer | ||||
| Baylie Brown | Country Music | Singer | ||||
| Beau Davidson | Rock Music and Country Music | Singer | ||||
| Danielle Lauderdale | Country Music | Singer | ||||
The Singing Bee premiered with a half-hour episode on July 10, 2007 at 9:30pm Eastern/8:30pm Central, beating Don't Forget the Lyrics! to the air by one day. The premiere episode was repeated the following night, July 11, 2007, at 8:30pm Eastern/7:30pm Central. On NBC, it was hosted by Joey Fatone. The house band, The Groove, was led by Ray Chew and features: Deanna Johnston, Paula MacNeill, Wes Quave, Tom Sartori, Storm Lee, Kelli Sae, Jeschelle Magbitang, Carmen Carter, Kara Shaw, Leah Shaffer, Karen Ashe, Christopher "C.J." Emmons, Vann Johnson and Chris "Breeze" Barczynski. The back-up singers were Toni Scruggs and Tanya Diona. Dancing to the band are the house dancers, The Honeybees: Ferly Prado Dunn, Monique Cash, Holly Cruikshank, and Lisa Byrne.
Melissa Peterman hosted the CMT version. The house band, Steve Dorff and the Bee Hive, also featured: Roger Cain, Scotty Kormos, Tony Love, and Jeff Vincent.[2] The singers were Jared Johnson, Baylie Brown, Beau Davidson, Paula MacNeill, Kim Parent, and Bobby Tomberlin.[3]
In each episode, six contestants (four contestants in season two) will be selected from the audience to play a series of games that test their knowledge of song lyrics. If a contestant makes an error, he or she will forfeit her chance to get into the "musical chairs". If a contestant is not in a musical chair when the round is over, he or she is eliminated.
In a promo for the show's launch, NBC revived their original 1983 slogan "Be There" as "Bee There".
Due to low ratings, and to make room for The Biggest Loser, NBC put The Singing Bee on hiatus for November sweeps. The Singing Bee returned on December 21, 2007,[4] and aired two new episodes each Friday, before being placed on hiatus again.[5] On April 2, 2008, NBC announced its schedule for the 2008-2009 television season. The Singing Bee was left off this list, and is officially canceled. A spin-off of the show, The Singing Office, debuted on June 29, 2008, hosted by Fatone and Mel B and airing on TLC.[6]
On April 29, 2009, CMT confirmed that it would revive the series in the summer of 2009 with Melissa Peterman as host.[7] The Singing Bee premiered on CMT on June 20 and will now air every Saturday at 9pm. Melissa Peterman confirmed the show was renewed for another season on August 24, 2009. In November, 2010 CMT reportedly picked up the show for a third season.[8] The show's last episode aired on July 23, 2012.
As mentioned, at the start of the show, the band plays a song and the host "randomly" gives audience members a chance to sing part of the song. If they sing it correctly, they become one of the contestants on the show. This part of the show is actually staged, and the contestants are preselected. During this part of the program, you can sometimes see (as the contestants run up to the stage) that the lyrics for the song are being scrolled on a banner over the stage so that the preselected contestants don't make a mistake.
The host would provide the year the song was released, the performer, and the name of the song. A portion of the song is performed, and then the contestant has to attempt to sing the next line of the song. If correct, they advance to the next round, and a new song is introduced, which the next contestant in line must attempt; if not, they have to step back, and the next person in line tries the same song. A song is thrown out if none of the remaining contestants get the lyrics correct. The first four people (three people in season two) who get a song lyric correct move on to the second round, and any contestant who hasn't had a chance loses and returns on a future episode.
The contestants who advanced go up in pairs to play a mini-game. The winner of the game advances to the championship round. In the CMT version, all four contestants play 3 mini-games for points, the two players with the most points moves on to the Chorus Showdown.
This follows a similar format to the first round, but instead of singing a line, the contestant is required to sing the entire chorus without mistakes from the song performed. If both are correct or incorrect (sometimes after two rounds), then they go to a tiebreaker, where they are given the year and the name of the performer and the first person to buzz in will be given the option of singing or passing. If the singer is correct, they win. If the singer is wrong, the other contestant wins.
The winner moves on to the Final Countdown.
In the CMT version, Peterman gives the year, artist, but not the name of the song just yet. Then, the contestant in the lead gets the choice to play that song or pass it, then they give the name of the song.
In the NBC version, Ray Chew introduces this concluding round by announcing in song: "It's the Final Countdown!" Up to 7 songs are performed in a similar manner to the first round, but the contestant knows nothing about the song, (artist, title, year) and thus must use the lyrics in order to win the big money. For each song lyric that is sung correctly, the player wins $5,000. If the player gets five right, then they win $50,000. However, if they sing a lyric incorrectly, a strike is given. If three strikes are given at any point, the game is over, but the contestant still wins whatever money was accumulated up to that point. Beginning in the second season, the winning contestant also defends as champion title to face three more challengers. On the new CMT version of the show, correctly guessing a song earns $500, and getting five wins $10,000.
The above format is the standard for a 30-minute episode of the show.
In a one-hour show, several changes are made:
The first episode premiered with 13.1 million viewers. It was the biggest summer premiere since ABC's premiere of Dancing with the Stars.[9] The debut episode finished second for the week of July 9–15, 2007, by an extremely close margin. The number one program, the 2007 MLB All-Star Game, beat "Bee" with an 8.4 rating, to the game show's 8.1[10]
However, The Singing Bee hit an all-time low in the ratings with a 1.7 rating, on October 30, 2007. On December 28, 2007, the show scored a 3.7/7 rating, and came in second place behind Ghost Whisperer, before NBC announced its cancellation. The show would eventually be revived by CMT in 2009, running until 2012.
| Season | First Aired | Last Aired | Episodes | Network |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | July 10, 2007 | December 28, 2007 | 18 | NBC |
| 2 | June 16, 2009 | August 15, 2009 | 10 | CMT |
| 3 | January 22, 2010 | August 20, 2010 | 18 | |
| 4 | April 8, 2011 | June 17, 2011 | 10 | |
| 5 | April 20, 2012 | July 23, 2012 | 10 |
Currently airing franchise
Franchise no longer in production
| Region/Country | Local name | Network | Main presenter | Date aired | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Singing Bee[11] | Nine Network | October 7, 2007 – 2010 | |||
| Singing Bee | vtm | Walter Grootaers | 2008 | ||
| HIT, la fiebre del karaoke | Canal 13 | Sergio Lagos | January 2, 2008 – March 2008 | ||
| Dígalo cantando | Caracol TV | Guillermo Vives | 2007–2008 | ||
| Magi i luften | TV3 | Robert Hansen | February 2008 | ||
| Dígalo cantando | TC Televisión | Sergio Sacoto and Pierina Uribe | 2008 | ||
| Biisikärpänen | MTV3 | Sanna Hirvaskari, Lorenz Backman, Lari Halme and Vexi Salmi | April 5, 2008 – December 17, 2011 | ||
| Hittikärpänen | TV5 | Roope Salminen and Sami Saari | September 7, 2015 – November 9, 2015 | ||
| Singing Bee | ProSieben | Senna Gammour Oliver Petszokat | September 9, 2008 – 2009 | ||
| Θα πείς κι ένα τραγούδι | Alpha TV | Andreas Mikroutsikou | 2007 | ||
| Popdaráló | TV2 | Áron Kovács | March 14, 2008 – December 6, 2008 | ||
| Singing Bee | Skjár einn | Jón Jósep Snæbjörnsson | September 19, 2008 | ||
| Happy Song (adaptation) | Indosiar | Choky Sitohang | April 27, 2009 – April 25, 2011 | ||
| The Singing Bee Indonesia (official franchise) | RCTI | Ananda Omesh | December 14, 2022 – August 30, 2023 | ||
 Israel | תשיר את זה | Channel 2 | Assi Azar | 2008–2009 | |
| Chi fermerà la musica | Rai Uno | Pupo | December 16, 2007 – February 22, 2008 | ||
| Singing Bee | Fuji TV | 2010 | |||
| غنيها صح | Ro'ya TV | Haitham Baroudi | May 2019 | ||
| Lebanon | طنة وغنة | Future TV | Razan Moghrabi | September 2012 | |
| فاصلة | 2M | Imad El Natifi | 2005 September 2007 | ||
| Singing Bee | RTL 4 | Gordon Heuckeroth | December 31, 2007 – July 26, 2008 | ||
| The Singing Bee NZ | TVNZ 2 | Jordan Vandermade | September 13, 2008 | ||
| Singing Bee | TV3 | Åge Sten Nilsen | 2008 | ||
| The Singing Bee | ABS-CBN | Cesar Montano | April 21, 2008 – February 6, 2010 | ||
| Amy Perez and Roderick Paulate | November 16, 2013 – February 6, 2015 | ||||
| Chamar a Música | SIC | Herman José João Manzarra | May 18, 2008 July 30, 2011 | ||
 Romania | O-la-la | Pro TV | Andra | October 18, 2008 | |
| Za Za Sing | Antena 1 | Liviu Vârciu | April 5, 2017 | ||
| Можешь? Спой! | Perviy Kanal | Dmitry Shepelev | July 12, 2008 – December 28, 2008 | ||
| Al pie de la letra | Antena 3 | Javier Estrada | December 25, 2007 – January 9, 2009 | ||
| Singing Bee[12] | TV3 | Hanna Hedlund | January 13, 2008 – December 3, 2009 | ||
| Singing Bee | Show TV | ||||
| Зірка караоке | Novyi Kanal | Dmitry Shepelev | March 9, 2008 – December 31, 2008 | ||
| Sing It Back: Lyric Champion* | ITV | JK and Joel | July 7, 2007 |
*Prior to the premiere of the American version, British Network ITV had its own version of the show titled Sing It Back: Lyric Champion. 2M TV in Morocco already had their own version of the show since 2005, called Fasilah, but since September 2007 they changed the rules into that of the American version.