The Voice is an American singing reality competition television series that premiered on NBC on April 26, 2011. Based on the original The Voice of Holland and part of The Voice franchise, it has aired 29 seasons and aims to find unsigned singing talent (solo or duets, professional and amateur) contested by aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. Singers must be at least 13 years of age to compete.
The winner is determined by television viewers voting by telephone, internet, SMS text, and iTunes Store purchases of the audio-recorded artists' vocal performances. They receive US$100,000 and a record deal with Universal Music Group for winning the competition. The winners of the twenty-nine seasons have been: Javier Colon, Jermaine Paul, Cassadee Pope, Danielle Bradbery, Tessanne Chin, Josh Kaufman, Craig Wayne Boyd, Sawyer Fredericks, Jordan Smith, Alisan Porter, Sundance Head, Chris Blue, Chloe Kohanski, Brynn Cartelli, Chevel Shepherd, Maelyn Jarmon, Jake Hoot, Todd Tilghman, Carter Rubin, Cam Anthony, Girl Named Tom, Bryce Leatherwood, Gina Miles, Huntley, Asher HaVon, Sofronio Vasquez, Adam David, Aiden Ross, and Alexia Jayy. Notable contestants who did not win but went on to have success on the Billboard charts afterwards include Morgan Wallen, Melanie Martinez, Libianca, Christina Grimmie, Loren Allred, Nicolle Galyon, Koryn Hawthorne and Fousheé.
The series employs a panel of four (or three) coaches who critique the artists' performances and guide their teams of selected artists through the remainder of the season. They also compete to ensure that their act wins the competition, thus making them the winning coach. The original panel featured Christina Aguilera, CeeLo Green, Adam Levine, and Blake Shelton; the panel for the upcoming thirtieth season will feature Levine, Kelly Clarkson, Riley Green, and Queen Latifah. Other coaches from previous seasons include Shakira, Usher, Gwen Stefani, Pharrell Williams, Miley Cyrus, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Nick Jonas, Ariana Grande, Camila Cabello, Chance the Rapper, Niall Horan, Reba McEntire, Dan + Shay, Michael Bublé, Snoop Dogg and Kelsea Ballerini. In the fifteenth season, Ballerini was featured as an off-screen fifth coach for "Comeback Stage" contestants. Bebe Rexha took over as the "Comeback Stage" coach for the sixteenth season.
Concept An adaptation of the Dutch show The Voice of Holland, NBC announced the show under the name The Voice of America in December 2010; its name was soon shortened to The Voice due to the association of the former name with a popular American news and radio broadcaster. Notably, the American edition of the series is the only one in the franchise that does not feature its country's name. In each season, the winner receives $100,000 and a record deal with Universal Republic Records (seasons 1 and 2) or later Universal Music Group (season 3–present).
Selection process and format
Each season begins with the "Blind Auditions", where coaches form their team of artists whom they mentor through the remainder of the season. The number of artists varies per season, with a set range between 8 and 16 artists. The coaches' chairs are faced towards the audience during artists' performances; those interested in an artist press their button, which turns their chair towards the artist and illuminates the bottom of the chair to read "I want you." At the conclusion of the performance, an artist either defaults to the only coach who turned around or selects their coach if more than one coach expresses interest. Introduced in the 14th season is "Block", which allows one coach to block another coach from getting a contestant. The "Block" has been used in every season since its inception except for seasons twenty-nine and thirty. Introduced in the 26th season was the "Coach Replay" where the coaches can save an eliminated artist who had no chairs turn and have them default to their team. The "Coach Replay" returned for season 27 under a new format, a coach may use it if he/she did not originally turn around and if one or more of the other coaches did turn to make the coach who did not turn eligible for the artist to choose. The "Coach Replay" did not return for season 28. However, a new feature was introduced, dubbed the "Carson Callback". This feature allows Carson Daly to select one artist to audition again after previously failing to make a team.
In the "Battle Rounds", each coach pairs two of their team members to perform together, then chooses one to advance in the competition. Each coach is assisted by different celebrity advisors which vary each season. In season one, coaches sit alongside their respective advisors in the battle stage; however, the advisors no longer join the coaches in the battle stage starting season two. In season 23, there are no advisors and its coach assumed the duties for advising the artists alone. season three introduced "steals", allowing each coach to save/select individuals who were eliminated during a battle round by another coach. First seen in the eighth season, artists are either given a walkover or is reassigned to a three-way battle in the event of another artist withdrawing from the competition if each coach sees fit. Saves were also added starting season 14, which lets a coach prevent someone that they eliminated on their team from going home; in seasons 23 and 25, Saves are replaced with "Playoff Pass" (based on the Battle Pass from the Australian version) which allow one artist to exempt them from participating in the Knockouts and directly advance to the Playoffs (the other artist advancing to the Knockouts as usual). In season 29, the "Super Steal" was introduced allowing the coach to override other steals in the round to acquire the artist.
The Knockout Rounds were also introduced in season three (except for seasons six and sixteen). A pair of artists within a team are selected to sing individual performances in succession. They are not told until a few minutes prior to their performances who their partner is. The artists get to choose their own songs in this round, although they continue to get help and advice from their respective coaches, and since season six, a celebrity advisor serving as a mega mentor (except seasons 14, 22 and 27). At the conclusion of the performances, coaches would decide which one of each pair gets to advance to the next round. Similar to the battle rounds, the coaches can steal one eliminated artist from another coach starting with season five. Starting in season 14, coaches can save one eliminated artist from their own team. From season 18 till 20, artists who were saved faced a Four-Way Knockout, with the winner decided through a public vote. In seasons 22, 24 and 26, this round featured trio pairings. In season twenty-four coaches were able to save one eliminated artist from their team or another coach's team in a twist called the "Super Save".
The "Battles, Round 2" were introduced to replace the Knockout Rounds in season six. Similar to the Knockout Rounds, each singer is paired within their team. One celebrity key adviser also assists all four of the coaches and their teams in preparation of these rounds. Coaches give each Battle pairing a list of songs and each pair must agree on which song to sing. Like the first Battle round, each coach can still decide which of their singers in each pair will advance to the next round, and also allowed one steal.
In the sixteenth season, the knockouts were replaced by The Live Cross Battles, a format identical to the Cross Battles from the Chinese version of The Voice. Each coach selects an artist to perform with another coach's artist together. The artist that receives the public vote will move on to the Playoffs, while the losing artist risks being eliminated from the competition or could be save by their coach or stolen by another coach. Like the knockouts, each coach had 1 save and 1 steal. The Live Cross Battles did not return in season seventeen due to poor reception.
Previously eliminated artists can also advance to compete in the live shows; between seasons nine and thirteen (except season 11), each coach saved one artist (from either the Battle or Knockout rounds) to put through to the Live Playoffs. For seasons 15 and 16, selected singers (prior to the Live elimination rounds) are put through to the "Comeback Stage" (which would be mentored by a fifth coach) and competed in a series of duels for a place in the live shows, with the winner earning a right to join a team of their choice. Season 21 added "Voice Comeback" where each coach picked one artist to compete in a Twitter poll, and only one artist with the most votes moves on.
In the final live performance phase of the competition (playoffs and elimination rounds), artists perform in weekly shows, where public voting narrows to a final group of artists and eventually declares a winner.
Under the current format since season three in favor on a more competitive standard previously seen on other similar reality shows, any artists, regardless of each team, who earned the lowest number of votes were progressively eliminated each week until five artists remain (three until season six, then four prior to season 17), hence introducing a possibility where at least one coach would not represent a single artist in the finale.
Prior to season three, the coaches have the power to save one artist that had not received the public's vote that week, and as of season two, "last chance performance" are added where artists performed an additional song to vie for their coach's save, or other twists employed such as "instant elimination", where an artist faced immediate elimination without going through a public vote. However, in deciding who moves on to the final four phase, the television audience and the coaches have equal say. With one team member remaining for each coach, the contestants compete against each other in the finale, where the outcome is decided solely by public vote. Season 18–20 temporarily reverted this format allowing each coach to guarantee at least one artist advancing in the finale to accommodate the short number of live shows at three weeks, but these changes were reversed on Season 21 by reverting to the regular elimination format while retaining the top five finalists.
Voting system
In a first for a music competition series, NBC and Universal Republic Records offered fans of the show the ability to vote for their favorite artists by purchasing the studio versions of the songs that they perform on the live show each week via the iTunes Store. Alternative methods of voting can be done through toll-free phone calls (until season eight), text messaging, "The Voice Official App on NBC" app, and online votes via NBC.com and Facebook. Each method is limited to ten votes per user and voting lasts until noon EST the next day.