As Singapore’s year-long 50th anniversary celebrations draw to a close, ContentAsia looks at some of the energy that went into marking the milestone.

Singapore is wrapping up a celebratory year during which more than 100 hours of programming was created specifically to commemorate the nation’s golden jubilee. The idea was to shine a light across screens on Singapore’s history, culture and icons.

The bigger ambition was to add to a catalogue of content that will find a global audience.

The 100 hours of SG50 media projects – including films, TV programmes and games – were created with the support of the regulatory/industry development body, the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA).

The MDA’s assistant chief executive for industry, Angeline Poh, has high hopes, saying she is confident that the Singapore-born programming “will be enjoyed by audiences in Singapore and beyond”.

One of the key series on the official SG50 slate is info-educational docudrama series There Was a Time, produced and directed by Singapore-based independent production house Ochre Pictures. There Was a Time, which aired on Singapore’s English-language terrestrial service Channel 5, features Singapore’s major historical events from the 1940s to independence in 1965.

Another SG50 concept is Beach House Pictures’ (BHP) Wild City (2x60 mins) for monopoly broadcaster MediaCorp’s dedicated news service, Channel NewsAsia. The programme is part of a series of SG50 documentaries produced by BHP for the golden jubilee.

Wild City showcases the urban wilderness that can be found among the concrete and air-con of the city of Singapore – including crocodiles, monkeys, otters, snakes and hornbills, among other animals and plants. The show was narrated by natural historian, Sir David Attenborough.

BHP plans to take Wild City global in 2016 in new series Wild Cities. The format aims to uncover hidden ecosystems in other major cities of the world – London, New York, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Sydney, Rio and Mumbai. Managing director, Jocelyn Little, says she believes “viewers in cities across the world will be as fascinated as the Singapore public to discover the unique wildlife and behaviours that exist right at their doorsteps”.

Media companies from across the spectrum embraced SG50 activities.

In October, for instance, the country’s biggest pay-TV platform, StarHub, awarded special commemorative SG50: Star of the Stars Awardsduring its annual StarHub TVB Awards.

The awards were bestowed upon Hong Kong legends Adam Cheng and Liza Wang “in recognition of their abilities to create strong, lasting bonds with Singaporean audiences throughout the past decades”, StarHub said. StarHub’s chief marketing officer, Howie Lau, said Cheng and Wang had “never failed to resonate with viewers regardless of the characters they played. We are honoured to present them with these once-in-50 years awards”.

A who’s who of Singapore filmmakers also gathered through the year to honour the country’s birthday.

Joint filmmaking effort, 7 Letters, brought together seven award-winning Singapore directors: Eric Khoo, Jack Neo, Kelvin Tong, Tan Pin Pin, Royston Tan, Boo Jun Feung and K Rajagopal. Their joint film, produced by Chuan Pictures, was comprised of seven short stories, each an interpretation of Singapore’s community, with the aim to present the country’s past, present and aspirations for the future.

In addition to seasoned filmmakers, Discovery’s First Time Filmmakers (FTFM) pinned a SG50 button on the initiative and called on local filmmakers to gather around the theme “The Singapore Story” for half-hour documentaries.

This was the first time since the initiative launched in Asia in 2000 that Discovery brought FTFM to Singapore.

Twelve finalists were shortlisted and five winners chosen to turn their ideas into documentaries. Full funding and production guidance were provided by Discovery Channel. The documentaries were aired on Discovery Channel Asia across the Asia-Pacific region throughout 2015. The final films covered a wide range of subjects, from card flourishing to urban farming.

Singapore’s national broadcaster, MediaCorp, recorded its own firsts during the year.

MediaCorp reported a record viewer numbers for its coverage of the SG50 National Day Parade and National Day Rally in August across seven linear television channels plus online streaming platform Toggle.

The live telecast of 9 August’s National Day Parade garnered a total of 2.2 millions viewers (P4+) – a 22% year-on-year increase and the second highest viewership since 2001. Live coverage of the National Day Rally on 23 August hit 1.62 million (P15+) viewers, MediaCorp’s highest for the event since 2001 and a 20% increase over 2014.

MediaCorp’s deputy chief executive, Chang Long Jong, said the high viewership was “very encouraging and reflects broad public enthusiasm about national events in a year of great significance for Singapore”.

The end of the celebrations will be followed by a year of high expectation, with, among other issues on the to-watch list, the launch of the new Singapore Television Audience Measurement (SG-TAM) system.

The promise is to give broadcasters, producers and advertisers access to audience consumption data across more media platforms than just free-to-air TV, adding pay-TV, OTT platforms, online and mobile channels. The data is expected to be available from the second half of 2016.

The promise is “new insights into the modern-day reality of viewership behaviour across many channels,” the MDA’s assistant CEO (assessment and corporate), Kenneth Tan, said when the results of the tender were announced earlier this year.

If it happens as planned, come 2016, there could be few better 51st birthday gifts.

This article first appeared in ContentAsia Issue 6, 2015, published in December 2015.