The Voice starts its new life on ITV at 8pm tonight, after five largely underwhelming outings on the BBC. When it was announced in November 2015 that ITV had acquired the rights to the show, there was speculation that it could replace the X Factor – but it’s since been confirmed that the X Factor will stagger on until at least 2019. To what extent sharing a channel will affect the evolution of either franchise remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the Beeb are launching Let It Shine, a Graham Norton-fronted show featuring XF alums Gary Barlow and Dannii Minogue in casting a musical based on the songs of Take That. It’s currently unclear (reportedly including to Cowell’s lawyers) how exactly the format will work – but there are apparently live shows, so there might be something for bookmakers to price up.
If you’re watching either or both, do let us know what you reckon below.
Caught the 1st half of the show last night. I think the producers on itv made a great decision to scrap the turning and talking to the rejected contestants, pointless doing that in the 1st place.
I thought the guy that sang 1st would be the type of winner that would have won and gone on to flop had the show still been on bbc1. Itv however would not be allowing that to happen. I fully expect the levels of manipulation we see in the x factor to be injected into the voice.
Jason has a great voice, he sounds very much like the Steve, The voice, Perry. He could be in for a Journey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlQgG5OdCYw
That’d be the only thing that would make me watch it.
Thought that lad Jamie who got turned away was quite good, and with the judges apparently ‘wondering if [they’d] done the right thing’, we could be on for some wildcards.
Could we have a Eurovision discussion thread please? 🙂
The first person on Let It Shine W2 could potentially be a winner, but his voice is weak.
This guy looks like Matt Smith.
Lee is way to cheesy – If he gets through which I am not sure it will be by 1-2 stars.
Brutal.
Who is Damien going to play!?
Update: He is the usual shock good one.
This guy is getting through. Especially after that VT.
A potential winner.
Wait, not 20? Hmn, if there was a betting market he would have went down a bit there.
Julius will get through but he won’t get that far.
About LIS
The winner will be Matt. A fairly bland singer with a good voice and has been playing in musicals before.
He is called Matt.
Simon should be suing, they just copied the X Factor winner.
Let it shine, wow. The last group or “The pimp slot” group have all the 5 stars. We all know who is winning.
Show 3, Contestants 2. Anyone else thinking Millicent Weaver could get to the business end of the series ? I personally thought she was absolutely brilliant yet only Gavin turned his seat around and she has one of the lowest audition views of the series on YouTube, her other available track on the site, ‘Acid eyes’ hasn’t been searched either, I’m happy with a speculative 28/1 in the hope that Gavin gives her a shout at the lives and hopefully viewers warm to what is one of the most unique voices I’ve heard on this show in 6 years.
This year the auditions seem to have been a string of largely worthy but dull acts. With few stand out acts it’s difficult to look past Mo as a potential winner at this stage.
I’ve got to agree with Andy above that Millicent looks to be the most interesting acts this year. Hopefully Gavin backs her through to the live shows, but whether she would attract votes is another matter.
One act that seems unlikely to be a vote winner is Truly Ford, but again I think she’s one of the most interesting acts. Her youtube channel has a few decent videos including a good cover Laura Marling’s Rambling Man, and her own track Blue Rose which has a Lana Del Rey meets Florence Welch flavor.
Strangely despite criticism on DS, Gavin seems to have put together the team featuring the more diverse and interesting acts.
Viewers on the voice app voted Millicent 74% v Max 26%.
7 betting slips into the trash. Cheers Gav.
What a joke – it wasn’t even close. Even Max knew he’d been well beaten.
Mo certainly has producer favour, pimp in Show 1 of the auditions, Pimp in show 1 of the battles, yet if young Jamie Miller gets anywhere near the lives, I suspect he could pull in more votes from the armchair audience. Cautious about getting stung again before I know who reaches the final 12 but Jamie is Plan B for me at the moment. Decent singer, strong regional vote from Wales and guaranteed the grandmothers vote after tears at his battle performance.
This seems to be pretty much running to form. I think Jennifer’s three for the finals will be Mo, David Jackson and Jamie Miller. That looks like a pretty strong line up. I’m struggling to see acts in the other teams that could realistically win in the public vote against them.
Oops. They’ve changed the format apparently so that the public vote in the knockout rounds too. Top two go through and the coach picks one of the remaining four to join them. So that’ll be all the bland male acts through then.
Still think that’ll be the line up from Jennifer’s team though.
Glad you dropped this comment here David, I’ve been taking 9/1 on betfair since Tuesday, I suspect Jamie will be a lot shorter when the market comes back in.
My pre show prediction is that Mo Adeniran, Jamie Miller get through then David Jackson is chosen by Jennifer. Tim could get through instead.
Death Slot for David? Not a great performance.
Jack won’t get through.
XF standards of voter manipulation tonight. There really were only two acts in it. Jack just fodder making up the numbers.
We definitely know how this is going now.
An X Factor style deramp for Nadine. Fire, first on etc.
Tom Jones hit the nail on the head when he said Jamie has got the whole package.
Just been listening to a few of his Youtube posts,
Leonard Cohen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IikRaiTV8Io
Beyoncé, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuTdQtq77bg
Justin Bieber, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iez-lHZrzSM
1, Strong regional Welsh vote, Tick.
2, Cute Teen, Heartthrob vote, Tick.
3, Grandmothers favourite, Tick.
Likable young lad with excellent stage presence who is capable of putting on a fine performance, versatile enough to sing almost anything asked of him and do a damn good job of it, he should have enough supporters onside by the time the final comes around, and then will have a strong duet with Jennifer to cement his victory.
Could he possibly be the first successful voice artist if he wins ? I’m sure there could be a market for him.
Jamie sang Hallelujah to classmates of his old primary school this week, guess he has the song lined up for one of the live shows, always a vote winner. A minute clip is on Jamie’s twitter for anyone interested.
Last week saw the introduction of the public vote for the knockouts, together with some gentle nudging (or was it more like a sledgehammer) to make sure the public made the correct decision. Mo, Jamie and Into the Ark were very clearly in. David was very definitely out.
This week looks on the face of it to be a bit more unpredictable, so it’ll be interesting to see how much meddling goes on. Treatment of Jason should be interesting to see – on past performance I would expect him to be first through in the public vote. Team Gavin looks the most varied, so will the acts get an even hand.
On team Will I’m going for Jason through on public vote, with Tanya and Clara picking up the other two places either way.
On Team Gavin I think Sarah will get one on the public votes, with possibly Keziah. I think Truly will get through, but she might need Gavin to save her.
This week we seem to have twelve diverse – and on the face of it well chosen songs to add into the mix. From an entertainment point of view if everyone performs to their potential it should make interesting viewing.
Jason hasn’t chosen wisely in my opinion, wouldn’t be surprised to see him miss out on the top 2 tonight, Tanya, Hayley and Michelle could all belt out crowd pleasers. It will be interesting to see who gets pimp slot, my guess is Tanya.
1 week since Jennifer’s knock out round.
Jamie Miller, Shape of you – 517,500 views on YouTube.
Mo Adeniran, Freedom – 191,760 views.
Jack Bruley, To love somebody – 75,726 views.
Jamie clearly winning the knockouts.
1 week since Tom’s knock out round. YOUTUBE VIEWS.
Into the ark, hold on we’re going home – 98,030 views.
Nadine McGhee, Secret love song – 81,719 views.
Craig Ward, Hold on tight – 45.922 views.
Early days on the 1st Tellymix poll only 160 votes registered.
Jamie Miller @ 52% at the moment, that’s more than all the other 11 finalist put together.
ITV don’t seem to have given to much detail on the format of the live shows this year. Do the coaches still have a fast pass for one act? How does the voting system work?
What may be significant is the balance between free app votes and paid for telephone votes. For the knockouts it was just one vote, rather than 4 free votes which the BBC used to have. The other factor is that there isn’t a separate results show – and therefore the voting window is likely to be very short. This may favor acts who can garner a strong degree of support – even if that’s from a narrower section of the audience.
First show I’ve seen this season. Jamie miller is clearly being thrown to the wolves. On 1st. Red and blacked. Cheesy song. Big deramp there.
I think ITV have enough of Jamie’s types of singers.
Mo is the chosen one and won’t be stopped
This is even more manipulated than Louisa Johnson’s win on The X Factor and that was as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Trying to stop Jamie. Thought of a Jamie ramp when I saw the song choices.
An improvement for Jamie. But they’re putting ITA right after him.
Interesting they’ve switched the running order so Mo and Jennifer are performing third rather than last.
Mo is usually 2nd to last or last.
Every single time. It’s so obvious.
I think the producers favoured order is:
Mo
Michelle
Into The Ark
Jamie
Okay. Her name is Michelle. We get it
Jamies slim hopes of victory vanish with another welsh act though to tomorrow.
Scottish dad vote?
Suprising. Thought Michelle would replace ITA
Following it from the States (slightly behind on YouTube) and wasn’t in the least bit surprised to see Michelle finish 4th. Today was the first time I’d seen or heard any of them. Mo’s got this.
Iooks like I’m the only one still in Jamie’s corner, the Welsh/Teen vote going to tip the balance hopefully. Not at his best tonight but support will carry over from previous performances.
I’m not sure many teens would be caught dead watching this, let alone voting on it. Also, don’t you think that Sir Tom Jones, from Wales, duetting with Into The Ark would have taken the bulk of the Welsh votes for them tonight?
Jamie has a couple of cracking performances under his belt Tim, (Ed Sheeran and Shaun Mendes) I’m still living in hope these won’t be forgotten. Maybe wishful thinking as a have a monster green.
1.5 million YouTube views of him singing shape of you in the knock outs, surely teenagers making up a decent percentage of these views ?
Can’t really get many clues from tonight’s song choices. I guess we will get more idea from the slot positions and arrangements of the songs.
Jamie first. Death slot but ad break. Jamie most likely win sadly.
I don’t see Jamie winning, he’s too young to really appeal to middle age women. The X Factor has never had a winner that solely appeals to teens and The Voice only give app voters one vote so they have less influence.
Judges comments to me say Mo is the winner tonight.
Wow.
Gut feeling ITA wins.
ITA does fit better into the line of Voice winners than Mo.
I find it impossible that they win to be honest. Trailing in all the polls and with the bookies. The one thing they had going for them was a regional vote which they split with Jamie.
Would probably resemble the biggest upset on the voice if they beat mo now.
Swooped in for the final episode and made a double up profit. A damn site better than I did with the X factor last year. Might adopt this as a new tactic.
See everyone back for BGT
Well done Buddy, I lost all I my CBB profit and more. Had a good run for my money at least but was surprised Jamie Finished 3rd.
I broke even on cbb which in the end I was grateful for.
Was you on Jamie ew? Hard luck if so. Don’t think anyone saw that coming.
We might get some voting stats with it now being on ITV rather than the BBC.
Win only unfortunately, went in at 16/1, 9/1 and 7/2, had plenty of opportunities this weekend to cash out with a decent profit but didn’t, the kitchen sink that was thrown at Mo this weekend should have been the obvious clue that I missed. He was the best singer in fairness.
Voting stats revealed.
Mo won the 1st round of final voting with almost 50% of the vote. He was never in doubt of winning. They knew that from the semi final stage.
Semi final
Mo 24.10%
Into The Ark 18.85%
Jamie 15.45%
Michelle 11.09%
Craig 10.91%
Max 10.88%
Truly 5.95%
Jason 2.78%
Final
Freeze 1
Mo 44.11%
Into The Ark 25.29%
Jamie 19.05%
Michelle 11.55% – 4th place
Freeze 2
Mo 48.67%
Into The Ark 28.15%
Jamie 23.18% – 3rd place
Final vote
Mo 61.80% – The Winner
Into The Ark 38.20%
Anyone watching The Voice this year? I think Donel will be the producers favoured winner, he got the first episode pimp slot and has had three videos about him uploaded on the youtube channel. It’s early days, but we’ll see what happens.
I’d agree with him being the best bet at the moment.
Whilst we wait for Eurovision coverage to kick off, what do you guys make of the EYD shortlist? Lot of hype over Asanda (I think it’s got “fanwank” written all over it) but Goldstone or Jaz Ellington could do very well if they make it to Lisbon.
With 5 out of 6 of the songs being Scandi co-writes, I was expecting it to be as bland as last year – so am surprised and delighted at the quality of the songs. It’s a good selection (the best UK NF lineup I can recall) and the BBC deserves praise instead of the usual social media carping (from which I haven’t been exempt in the past!). I think 4 out of 6 of them are excellent (Asanda, Liam, Raya and Jaz), the Goldstone one merely OK/generic (Little Mix via O’G3NE), the only one I don’t like is SuRie (though I like her) – the song is junky on-trend tropical house, very reminiscent of Clean Bandit in its plinky plonky bland sentimentality. I’d be happy with any of Asanda, Liam, Raya and Jaz being chosen, and the other two are at least contemporary even if they’re not up my street. A good field.
Yep. I could live with any of those six going to Lisbon, and I agree I’m not getting the hate on social media this year. Three years ago we sent an internally-picked shower of shit. This is a Quantum leap from last year, let alone those dark days of the first half of this decade. Asanda leading the market by a mile at the bookies currently, as well as in terms of YouTube, social media traction etc.
I don’t think we should send Asanda. We touched that fire already and a fat lot of good it did us.
Different era, and this is more Carribean-influenced than Ethnopop-influenced. I do concede you could imagine hearing it on Capital FM or Radio 1 but I still think it sounds a mess.
Yes and just because Javine didn’t do well doesn’t mean that anything remotely like it won’t.
Well I should probably elaborate a bit. ‘Legends’ is an R&B song that hasn’t been optimised for a Eurovision performance, more for commercial appeal. In its current form it has an awful lot of filler and repetition, and it falls into the trap of having a pre-chorus followed by an instrumental dance break in lieu of a proper chorus. This generally gives you about an 18th place in the final ceiling at ESC, no matter how good the song may be. Cascada, Barei, Freaky Fortune/Riskykidd and others I’m sure have all fallen into this trap.
The frustrating thing is, her song can so easily be re-worked to make the low brass dance break a showpiece before the middle-eight, and adding more of a beat and a melody to the current pre-chorus so it becomes a more ‘hummable’ melodic chorus, like with Kalomira. But I don’t see it undergoing a structural revamp like that, it’ll just get some spit and polish if it wins the selection.
Goldstone are a safer bet, because the UK appears to be in a position where just sounding remotely current feels like the BBC really going for the win, but that alone isn’t enough to get a respectable score, you need a song that has a flow of light and shade, ending on a high. ‘Legends’ is quite linear.
If we do send Asanda I totally understand why, and she might be brilliant in Lisbon, but because of the way the song is built, she still might struggle to attract support. We could only really hope for a decent televote score based on a Jessy Matador inspired performance.
A third-rate girlband with a Little Mix B-side is never a safe bet.
Lol, the songs are all third-rate. I never said it was good, it’s just the most ready-to-go of them all, and IMO has the fewest obstructions to a result that can at least marginally improve on Lucie’s.
Just on first impressions, Asanda – ‘Legends’ reminded me of ‘Run The Show’ by Kat Deluna & Bustah Rhymes. I think it’s OK, not surprised that it seems to be the most popular one at the moment.
I quite liked ‘Astronaut’ by Liam Tamne, but maybe I just liked the whole outer space theme.
Raya – ‘Crazy’ isn’t bad I suppose, but I don’t know, it seems like there’s not much to it?
I feel like I want to like Jaz Ellington – ‘You’ more than I actually do. He’s got a great voice, but the song’s a bit on the boring side.
SuRie – ‘Storm’ is very dull and cliched. I don’t even think it’s particularly contemporay to be honest.
I agree with the Little Mix comparisons about Goldstone, and that one is my least favourite by a mile, I think it’s awful! Maybe worse stuff has been sent in, but still.
That said, overall it’s not a bad selection really, certainly better than last year, and I think some of the songs might be growers.