The Voice

Last week I went home for Easter and it was so nice to just be able to turn on the TV and watch random television shows because we don’t really have that opportunity at school. While watching a devastating Sabres game where they gave up a 3-1 lead in game 6 allowing the Flyers to tie the series 3-3, advertisements for the show ‘The Voice” were everywhere. My mom informed me that the commercials have been playing on NBC non-stop. Clearly NBC was trying to push this show.

When deciding what to watch, their persistent advertising method clearly worked because that is immediately what came to mind. Interestingly enough, I could not watch the whole episode on iTunes, but I could watch it on their website. Only allowing me to watch on their website forced me to actually visit the site where I could explore more about the show itself.

At first when I started watching I was skeptical of the show because I thought it was just NBC’s desperate attempt at getting their own American Idol singing-style television show. When I began watching, however, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it had its own unique twist.

While watching those opening auditions on American Idol with horribly bad singers among the good ones can be entertaining, I always thought they went on too long. The Voice gets rid of this audition round and only puts people with genuinely decent voices on the show, which I liked.

Here’s how the show works. 4 successful singers (Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton) act as coaches/ judges. In the first round these four sit in chairs facing the opposite direction of the singer, so that they are judging purely on talent not appearance. If they like what they hear they hit a button and their chair spins around allowing them to see the performer. If only one spins around that performer is automatically placed on that specific coaches team. If, however, more than one coach spins around, the performer then is allowed to choose which coaches team they would like to join. At the end of these blind auditions, each coach has a team. In the next round a battle round takes place where the singers are given advice from the coaches and then they two team members compete against each other and the coach decides who will move on. Then, in the last round there is a live performance where the public will help decide who moves on and eventually who wins a recording contract.

This is similar to American Idol because it still incorporates that interactive TV idea where viewers are active participants in helping decide the course of the show. One thing I found fascinating was that throughout the show, twitter posts were displayed on a banner across the screen and the proper hash tag was even posted for viewers. This new aspect highlights that social media is constantly evolving and shaping the way we watch/participate in television.