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Media Top Stories
Voice founder will review show with BBC
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 29 May 2012
Ratings for the UK version of ‘The Voice’ franchise have been “a little bit disappointing”, the original creator of the format, John de Mol, has admitted, as he meets with the BBC to discuss making changes to the programme before a second series.
As previously reported, when ‘The Voice’ – somewhat controversially bought in by the BBC in a bid to compete with the Simon Cowell-led talent shows on ITV – first aired earlier this year it performed well, especially when it went head to head with Cowell’s ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. So much so, Cowell and ITV pushed their show back in the schedules to avoid any overlap with their new rival.
But as the first series of ‘The Voice’ progressed, and especially once the unique bit of the franchise (the ‘blind auditions’) were over, the BBC show started to slip in the ratings, while ‘BGT’ grew its audience. The most recent edition of the Beeb’s show, a semi-final, had just 4.5 million viewers, while the recent ‘BGT’ final drew in 11.9 million people.
According to The Guardian, De Mol says that he is generally pleased with how the first series of the UK version of his talent show franchise has gone, but admits: “We are due to have a big meeting after the final and will talk about what we should change for the second series … There may be a few slight changes”.
Asked whether that meant new judges for series two, De Mol stressed that he was very pleased with how Jessie J, Tom Jones, Danny O’Donoghue and Will.i.am had turned out, but confirmed everything is up for review, saying of the judging line-up: “That’s part of the discussions we will have with the BBC after the final. The question is, do the coaches want to continue”.
He added that the US version of the show might also have some new features added for its next series, which could also be incorporated into the UK edition. As well as discussing how to improve the main programme, De Mol is also set to meet with BBC chiefs to discuss a kids’ version of the singing show.
