Produced by Astro in a joint initiative with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Battleground Malaysia: Road to Gold is Malaysia's biggest street dance competition and will premiere 29 September 2023, every Friday at 10PM on four different vernacular channels on Astro, Astro RIA (CH104), Vinmeen (CH202), and SHOWCASE (CH413) every Friday, 10PM from 29 Septembe; Astro AEC (CH306) every Saturday, 11PM from 30 September.
The show is also groundbreaking because it will be hosted in three languages and has four hosts who will speak in a mix of languages organically. The hosts are Sherry Al-Hadad, Dennis Yin (who himself won Battleground in 2007 and 2009) and Saint TFC. The multi-talented actor, rapper and host, Zizan Razak is also a judge in the series along with four dance captains who will find the best dancers and coach their teams.
The four eminent dance captains will recruit the contestants into crews of 10 based on their dance skills. Out of over 60 dancers, only 40 will qualify and the first two episodes will reveal who makes the cut.
The four captains are two-time SEA Games Breaking Gold medalist Lego Sam, fellow Malaysian B-Boy SEA Games contender Khenobu (who won Battleground in 2014), Danny Lee from the music group 3P (ThreeeProduction) (won Astro Battleground 2013), and Seven (two time chamption in 2010 and 2011).
They shape their dancers into a cohesive unit by testing their individual skills through various dance challenges. The show also focuses on bringing dancers from different backgrounds together for street dance. Only the strongest dancers will survive the competition.
The show was made in an effort to encourage the participation of youths in breaking or break dancing as it has officially been introduced as a sport at the Olympics. Speaking at the press event, YB Hannah Yeoh, Minister of Youth and Sports revealed that breaking was chosen as the sport to focus on because it doesn't require equipment or expenses from schools.
This way, children of all ages can look and be inspired by the show to pick up breaking and pave the road to a gold at the Olympics one day.
Astro's Battleground was one of the longest-running dancing competitions in Malaysia and even spun off to Asian Battleground from 2014 – 2017 that saw dancers from other countries compete in Malaysia for the grand prize.
Battleground Malaysia: Road to Gold is a joint initiative with the Ministry of Youth and Sports powered by the newly minted arm of Rakan Muda lifestyle brands, Rakan Ekspresi and Rakan Muzik. Rakan Muda, for those of you old enough in the audience was founded in 1994 and was revitalised recently under Kementerian Belia dan Sukan.
If you're curious, the 10 subbrands under Rakan Muda are: Rakan Aktif, Rakan Bumi, Rakan Demokrasi, Rakan Digital, Rakan Ekspresi, Rakan Litar, Rakan Muzik, Rakan Mahir, Rakan Niaga, and Rakan Prihatin. The refreshed Rakan Muda hopes to be a platform to foster healthy pasttimes and to promote unity.
YB Hannah also revealed at the press conference that this new collaboration with Astro is also part of PMX' unity initiative, where the government and private sectors as well have unity to collaborate to birth a greater Malaysia.
Battleground Malaysia: Road to Gold follows INNOVATHON, which was an entrepreneurial reality series produced by Astro in partnership with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation. Time will tell if there are more collaborations in the future between the Unity Government and partners in the private sector to unearth Malaysian talent.
Astro will be holding the grand finale LIVE on 3 November and the winning team stands to receive a grand prize of RM100,000, while the 1st runner-up team takes home RM30,000. Additionally, individuals in the winning team will go head-to-head against each other with the best individual dancer winning an additional prize of RM25,000.
As far as attendance to the final event goes, Agnes Rozario, Director of Content, Astro, said, “We look forward to the grand finale to crown the winner in front of a live audience including Astro customers through our Astro Rewards initiatives.”