Is The Voice here to stay?

_The Voice_ has been widely praised since its premiere on BBC on March 24th. A competition designed to find musical talent, _The Voice_ has received the obvious comparisons to both _The X Factor (ITV)_ and _Britain’s Got Talent (ITV)_, with the latter being broadcast at a similar time to The Voice, including a twenty minute overlap during the initial shows.

_The Voice_ originated in Holland in 2010, yet it was the success of the U.S. version, of which Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green and Blake Shelton are judges, which really propelled _The Voice_ into mainstream success. The U.S. show gained popularity due to its unconventional format, debuting with satisfactory ratings yet building upon these week-by-week. The show also gave the judges a platform to promote their music, which helped to revive Christina Aguilera’s career, which at the time, was flagging due to her national anthem slip-up and later, her arrest for public intoxication. A duet between Maroon 5 and Aguilera, entitled Moves Like Jagger, was performed on the show and later became one of the best selling singles of the year, selling over 8 million copies worldwide. By the time that the second season premiered after this year’s Super Bowl, _The Voice_ achieved an audience of over 36 million people.

_The Voice_ has found popularity in the UK as an alternative to other talent competitions. With the line-up of judges including will.i.am, Jessie J, Tom Jones and Danny O’Donoghue, the show provides musical experts from a wide range of fields. Jessie J is a promising new British artist who has recently achieved success both here and stateside, will.i.am is a member of one of the most successful groups of all time, Sir Tom Jones has had a career spanning nearly five decades, and Danny O’Donoghue is the lead singer of Irish rock band The Script. Last year, _The X Factor_ failed to match the success of preceding series, partially due to a new judging panel, which saw Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue replaced by Gary Barlow, Tulisa Contostavlos and Kelly Rowland, but also due to a perceived lower standard of talent than earlier seasons.

One of the highlights of _The Voice_ is that it includes none of those skipable auditions. It includes none of the ‘joke’ auditions and it includes none of the immature contestants, both of which are present on _The X Factor_ and _Britain’s Got Talent_. This is due to performances prior to those broadcast during the aptly titled blind auditions, auditions in which the contestants perform to the producers alone, acting as a screening process. This means that for the first time in recent years, all of the auditions broadcast are enjoyable to watch. The blind auditions involve a very different format than auditions on other talent shows, in which the contestants are essentially judged on their voice alone, as opposed to their appearance or personality. Instead of watching the contestants, the judges have their chairs turned away; if they like what they hear, they press a button and their chair turns around, automatically assigning themselves to the contestant. If more than one judge happens to turn around, then the contestant is able to choose which judge is to become their coach.

Things become even more interesting as the show progresses into the battles round, in which the contestants are placed in a mock boxing ring, where they must perform a duet, competing against each other until their coach decides which contestant to take through into the live rounds. The battles rounds took place over one weekend, which means that in just two episodes, half of the contestants were eliminated.

The immediate popularity of _The Voice_ has been surprising. Rather than debuting to smaller numbers and building up a fan base week-by-week, _The Voice_ debuted to a substantial audience and recently broke the iPlayer record for most views in a single day. Furthermore, when the _The Voice_ and _Britain’s Got Talent_ overlapped by twenty minutes, _The Voice_ was in possession of 11.8 million viewers, in comparison to _Britain’s Got Talent’s_ 5.2 million. _The Voice’s_ ratings are likely to rise further in weeks to come due to the progression into the live rounds, where guest acts such as Lana Del Rey and Emile Sandé will perform on the results show.

Whether _The Voice_ is here to stay or not is uncertain. In light of the success of the U.S. version, which has recently been renewed for a third season, one might be tempted to assume that the UK version will experience a similar future. However, it is important to remember that we haven’t even finished the first season, rather we are only six weeks into the series. Whilst only time will tell if the show has staying power, it certainly provides entertainment as a refreshing alternative to the currently oversaturated market of talent competitions and has already acquired a firm audience, suggesting that _The Voice_ may be on our television screens for a while yet.