The Voice UK is not in the best health. Its ratings plummeted last series. Given the lacklustre contestants, dated staging and an altogether terrible editing process, there’s little surprise it hasn’t been the dream show the BBC wanted. Beyond the spinning chairs, there’s nothing special about it. Trashed for the past two years in a ratings war with TV leviathan Britain’s Got Talent, the BBC recently announced the show will now air in January, with the finale likely to take place in March before BGT even airs.
Now call me a crackpot conspiracy theorist, but I think there’s more to this than just avoiding a time-slot clash with the ITV talent show. If I didn’t know better I’d think the BBC had its high on a two-birds one stone policy – making The Voice do better in the ratings and seeing off accusations of poor selection choices for Eurovision. In short, I think The Voice is set to become the BBC’s selection vehicle for the 2014 Contest.
Contestants from The Voice in Belgium and Russia made the Top 15 last year, and there’s no doubt that in both UK series, the contestants had great voices. Sadly there is no platform for them afterwards. There’s no glittering record deal waiting at the end of the process and frankly there’s no point to them. The “winner” releases a dodgy debut album and single and plummets off the charts—and out of our collective memory.
The change of broadcast time puts The Voice in line with the big Scandinavian selection shows like Melodifestivalen. If the show is announced as the vehicle to find our singer for Europe, in the style of the German selection show, it’ll be bound to pick up more viewers since there’s actually a purpose behind it. The addition of Kylie Minogue to the judging panel is surely the icing on the cake.
Part of me doubts how reasonable this idea is, but equally it’s not like it’d be any skin of the BBC’s back either. They already have the show format sitting there, and it didn’t prove a problem for Belgium or Russia to put forward their winners for Eurovision. If anything it should at least produce a credible artist, even if the song might be hideous. And, in the unlikely event the UK ends up near the top of the table in Copenhagen, then it adds to the credibility of The Voice and the BBC can reap the PR rewards of having done good.
It remains to be seen what the BBC is going to do. If they’re following an internal selection then they’ll be picking their singer right around now, but I reckon after three years of definitely mixed success in this realm, it’s time the UK returned to a public selection process.
What do you think is going on with The Voice Series 3? Would you prefer a national selection to an internal one? Let us know in the comments box below!
Angus Quinn contributed this report from the U.K. You can follow him on Twitter at @Angus_Quinn17. Then like our Facebook page to keep up-to-date with all the latest news and gossip.
Eurovision is a difficult to master.
You need great vocals, a great act, some TV experience.
The Voice should guarantee the vocals – but does it really, who deserves to win wins…
Act – standing by a microphone is not enough, you really need to perform in all ways possible.
TV experience, you might get it during the show (some are naturals)
If BBC were to select one of the contestants, that could be quite OK.
The Voice would procure at least a fresh voice & face.. but it is quite a gamble!
Actually, let me make the caveat that having a complicated, drawn-out national final hasn’t really helped some other countries… Slovenia didn’t do so well in 2012 with an incredibly drawn out selection process, especially compared to the year before where they only had a brief national final and Maja Keuc happened to be one of the contestants. Croatia wholly copied Germany’s 2010 selection process, but then they didn’t make it out of their Eurovision semifinal. (I still think they should’ve kept their song as “Break a Leg” instead of “Celebrate,” if only for the sake of being funny…)
I agree with LJ’s comment: for some other big-5 countries, big contests with a lot of song variety have really done well for them at Eurovision. In more recent years, remember Germany in 2010 and 2012 with Lena and Roman Lob and their somewhat complicated song selection (with the simpler 2013 format not working out as well), as well as Italy these past few years with the San Remo contest. The UK would do good to put a lot of effort into this. It could make for some really good television regardless. The trouble is they actually have to act… Read more »
In Spain, up until a few years ago, they used their version of Fame Academy to choose their eurovision selection. The last few candidates in the process had to perform 3 songs each that they collaborated on with their mentors, and the public chose their favourite. Worked really well – when the 2002 winner Rosa performed her song at Eurovision, 20 million Spanish tuned in to her sing with her ex-competitors singing with her, including David Bisbal!
@Martin Palmer,
Letting the British public decide again isn’t any better than sending two has-beens with poor song choices, especially as they probably haven’t learnt from their past mistakes.
To be honest, I don’t think that Leanne nor Andrea would have done very well in Eurovision. Dina is by far the best vocalist I have seen come out of any version of The Voice and Roberto had the charm and image to carry him through, even though he wasn’t the best singer…
It can’t be any worse than choosing two 60yr+ singers with poor songs to represent the UK – can it?
Umm I just don’t know … It’s a pity the voice isn’t more successful, it’s much better than the trash that is britians got talent but the British love trash tv … As for eurovision it wouldn’t be the best format as it doesn’t focus on the song which is key for eurovision .. BBC really do have the resources to win an the host a great eurovision ( they are the biggest broadcaster in the world). The just need the right team In charge for eurovision ..
Sorry Angus, but the reason the next series of The Voice is moved to January next year, is so the BBC can avoid further conflict with ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent, as well trying to make up for its plummeting ratings.
As they’ll be so focused on The Voice, it looks like the BBC will continue with the internal selection process, and leaving it dangerously close to the EBU deadline.
I personally don’t see The Voice UK as a great stepping stone to find a UK performer for Eurovision. I dunno why the BBC can’t go back to the glory days. If they wanna choose an artist then so be it, but give the public the chance to pick the song.
If the BBC actually picked a current artist (not even a famous artist), then I wouldn’t mind it if they had an internal selection. But no, they choose has-beens and mediocre songs to go with them. But I fear that if we went back to having a national selection, the UK would choose the cheesiest act in the competition since the British public still think thy the contest is a cringe-fest, so if they do produce a national selection, they need to ensure that all of the songs/artists competing are current and of a good quality. Would The Voice be… Read more »
One would think that after two straight years of disappointing results (three straight years if you count Blue, but they were almost top 10), BBC would have learned its lesson. Hopefully you’re right, and this is indeed what BBC is planning for Eurovision.