A good idea or not? Aren’t we over signing shows? It shouldn’t matter that genre wunderkind Mark Burnett has delivered his latest format and the world is chewing it up – is it going to work in Australia? I’ll propose no, but I suspect my thoughts mean nothing. Channel 9 have been light on the reality content this year and while it may seem there’s a legislated number of hours each network has to meet (there’s not), they’ll add this to the stable. Who will host? Who will judge? Who will care? Take it as a given. From the press release:

Channel Nine, SHINE Australia and Talpa Productions today announce they are joining forces to find real music talent with hot new series from the US – THE VOICE – going into local production.

Currently a ratings smash hit in the US with more than 10 million viewers a week, THE VOICE is a vocal competition and will feature the same innovative format as its US counterpart – three stages of competition with a blind audition, battle rounds and finally the live shows, revealing Australia’s very best undiscovered artists, coached by four superstars.

During the blind auditions, if a coach is impressed, he/she pushes a button to select the artist for his/her team of competitors. At this point, the coach’s chair will swivel so that he/she can face the artist he/she has selected. If more than one coach selects the artist, the power shifts to the artist who may choose which coach he/she wants to work with throughout the competition. An artist is eliminated when he/she is not chosen by one of our coaches who are superstar music talents themselves.

Once the teams are set, the battle is on. Coaches will mentor the artists and make them over, and ultimately will transform their superlative voices to allow the singers to become star vocalists. To help them decide who they want to advance, the coaches will pit two of their own team members against each other to sing the same song in front of a studio audience. Based on this, the coaches will pick who they want to continue developing and who should go home.

In the final performance phase of the competition, the top artists from each team will compete against each other during a live broadcast. The television audience, together with the coaches, will vote to select who will move on from each team and who will be eliminated. Artists perform live with their coaches and other famous singers.

At last, each coach will have their best artist left standing to compete in the finale. From these four, one will be named “The Voice of Australia”.

Jeffrey Browne, Managing Director of Channel Nine, said: “We are very excited to bring this special television event to Australian audiences. The Voice will become must watch entertainment for the whole family.”

Mark Fennessy, CEO of SHINE Australia said: “”The Voice really is the next step in talent shows that’s got the world buzzing. It’s the real deal.. this show is all about the voice and not the looks”.

John de Mol, creator of the format and Executive Producer of ‘The Voice’ said: “The Voice is all about real and amazing singing talent. Only the best of the best is good enough to enter our Blind Audition. In the early stage of the show, if more than one coach is interested in an artist, the power shifts and the artist will choose their own star coach. That makes it very exciting. You could say that ‘The Voice of…’ starts where ‘Idol’ ends.”

THE VOICE is modelled on Holland’s top-rated vocal talent discovery show, “The Voice of Holland.” The VOICE US is hosted by Carson Daly, and features four musician coaches – Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton, who select and coach only the most talented vocalists.

“The Voice” is a co-production between SHINE Australia and Talpa Productions and will be seen on Channel Nine in the coming months.