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The Voice could go to ITV in 2017
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 31 July 2015
‘The Voice’ may switch to ITV the series after next, according to sources.
Well, speculators really, in that this is mainly a conclusion reached by combining three separate facts: first that the Beeb’s current deal with ‘Voice’ owners Talpa Media only runs for one more series; second ITV bought Talpa Media earlier this year; and third shows like ‘The Voice’ are set to be much criticised by the current government review of the Corporation’s operations.
Of course, we’re all meant to be bigging up the BBC at the moment, otherwise Culture Minister Johnny Whittingdale and his best buds in the commercial media might kick the whole organisation down a big hole, and build a tanning salon on top of it to obscure the mess they leave behind.
Though, while the BBC is, of course, brilliant and magnificent and wonderful, and must be protected from such vandalism, that doesn’t mean the twonks that run the place aren’t more than capable of pissing licence fee payer money up the wall on vanity projects and other unnecessary ventures. Like the utterly pointless BBC Music Awards and that stupid all-star ‘God Only Knows’ cover.
However, despite Johnny wanting the BBC to mainly focus on making programmes about particle physics and wool, that doesn’t mean the Corporation shouldn’t be in the business of entertaining the masses, which it routinely does with its own programming franchises like ‘Doctor Who’, ‘EastEnders’ and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.
But shows like ‘The Voice’ can be controversial for the Beeb, because it was bought in at great expense from a third party to compete with an existing very similar format broadcast by rival ITV, ie ‘X-Factor’. And even some friends of the BBC question whether that was a good use of licence fee funds. Even if you argue that ‘The Voice’ is clearly not a commercial show, in that no UK winner from it has ever enjoyed anything nearing a commercially successful career post their victory on the programme.
All of which is fuelling speculation, principally in The Sun, that the BBC will have to dump its music talent show after its 2016 outing, but that ITV will then take the franchise on, it already owning it via the Talpa acquisition, despite not having the rights to use it in the UK just yet. So that’s good news isn’t it? That everyone thinks there’ll still be space on the telly airwaves for two popstar talent shows come 2017.
