The Voice of the Philippines
The Voice of the Philippines is a Philippine television reality singing competition that aired on ABS-CBN, and is based on the Dutch television series The Voice of Holland. The show premiered on June 15, 2013 and was hosted by Toni Gonzaga and Robi Domingo. Sarah Geronimo, Bamboo Mañalac, Lea Salonga, and apl.de.ap serve as the four coaches and the judging panel of the show.
The show had aired two seasons and had produced two winners: Mitoy Yonting and Jason Dy.
It is the fourth national franchise in the Southeast Asian region after Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Overview
The series is part of The Voice franchise and is based on a similar competition format in the Netherlands entitled The Voice of Holland.Format
The Voice is a reality television series that started from a format originating from the Netherlands named "The Voice of Holland". The whole format features four coaches or judges searching for a batch of talented new artists, who could become the Philippines' new singing superstar. The show's concept is indicated by its title: The four coaches will only judge a singer hopeful termed by the show as "Artist" with only his or her vocal talent without prejudice to his/her physical bearing.It is this concept that makes The Voice franchise rise above other known reality talent searches which airs in any known media platform such as The X Factor franchise, the Got Talent franchise or even the Idol franchise. The artists who have advanced from the audition round would be split into four teams, whom are coached/mentored by the 4 well-known personalities in terms of singing which in the show, termed "Coaches" who in turn would collaborate with them and choose songs for their artists to perform. Only 18 years old and above can participate.
There are four known different stages: Producers' auditions, Blind auditions, the Battles, and the Live shows.
On-ground and the producers' auditions
As for any "The Voice" franchise, the first stage is the producers' auditions, which are not shown on television. In the Voice of the Philippines, ABS-CBN headed by their regional partners nationwide and abroad are tasked to conduct the "Unseen Auditions." At this stage, there will be different judges that will use the power of media to conduct three types of screening; radio auditions, online auditions and on-ground auditions where the team will travel in and out of the country to find the best of the best to participate in the next set of auditions, "The Blind Auditions."Blind auditions
The first televised stage is the blind auditions, where artists will be given a minimum of 90 seconds to sing their audition piece. The official coaches of the show will be sitting on a chair facing away from the stage and artist. The coaches will only judge by the power, clarity, type and uniqueness of the artists singing capability. If they like what they hear and want to mentor the artist for the next stage, they will push a button on their chair that would turn the chair around to face the artists for the first time. This concept was created to avoid any due prejudice of their physical bearing and life-story. If a coach turns for an artist, that artist will be included in his/her team. If more than one coach turns around, the choice to pick a who will he/she be mentored goes to the artist. If no coach turns his/her chair the auditioning artist's journey ends. At the end, each of the coaches will have a certain number of artists in his or her team who will be advancing to the next round.The Battles
The next stage called "The Battles", is where a coach will build from his team pairs of 2. A pair will be given a single song to sing together. They are mentored and developed by their respective coach in the process. A vocal showdown will commence in the Battle stage where only the artist whom the coach deemed sung the song assigned better will advance to the next round.The power to steal a losing artist from the other teams was implemented in the second season. In this new twist, a coach can steal two artists during the entire the Battles.
The Knockouts
Along with the 'steals' in the Battles, the Knockouts was a new addition to the format of the show starting from the second season. Each artist had to sing in order to convince their respective coach to pick them for the Live shows. Each artist will decide on what song they will sing. At the end of this round, six artists per team will move to the Live shows.Live shows
The next round known as the "Live shows" is where the remaining artists per team perform in front the coaches, audience and Live Broadcast. An artist will be given a song to sing for a chance to advance to the finals. During the first two Live shows, each coach will pit three of his/her artists in a head-to-head battle to win the public's vote. The voting results are announced on the same night as the live shows. The coaches have the power to save one artist that had not received the public's vote that week. The artist not chosen by their coach will be eliminated from the competition. At the end of the first two Live shows, only four artists per team will proceed. From the third and fourth live shows, the public and the coaches will have equal share of power on which artist would advance to the final four, with each team being represented by one remaining artist. During the finals, the winner will only be decided upon by the public through different platforms. The most voted artist of the competition will be crowned as The Voice of the Philippines.Voting system
The voting system for the Live shows is based on the decision of the public through different platforms, and from the scores received by the artists from their respective coaches. During the first season, the voting lines were immediately open after all artists have performed and viewers were given 10 minutes during commercial break to vote. Once the show resumed, the results were announced on the same night as the live results. From the third live show, the iTunes bonuses and the coaches' scores came into effect.From the third Live shows week of the second season, the voting format used in the first two Live shows of the first season was used. Each night will be a performance and results night. Two teams will perform per night. After each performance per team, the voting lines will be immediately opened; it will be closed after the commercial break. Before the night ends, an artist will be eliminated per team.
Development
As for the Philippines version of the show, ABS-CBN acquired the rights of the franchise back in 2011 after the success of its US counterpart. The Philippines was then listed as one of the countries who bought the rights for the franchise as posted in the website of Talpa. The show was later confirmed by Laurenti Dyogi, a Filipino director who had a notable success with reality shows like Pinoy Big Brother, Pinoy Dream Academy, and Junior MasterChef Pinoy Edition.A teaser was shown during the commercial break of Sarah G. Live and Gandang Gabi, Vice! last December 30, 2012. A teaser, showing the recorded snippets of the blind auditions, was aired on May 15, 2013. Another trailer was posted in the show's official Facebook fan page on May 24, 2013, showing the coaches' bantering, rapport, and eagerness to fight over an auditionee.
A teaser, which revealed the premier date of the show, was aired during the final performance night of the fourth season of Pilipinas Got Talent. A primer, dubbed as Mic Test: The Voice of the Philippines Primer, was also announced in the same night. It aired on June 9, 2013. The primer had a special participation of Danny O'Donoghue, The Script's frontman, who at that time sits as a coach in The Voice UK.
On September 5, 2013, Lauren Dyogi announced that the show will have a second season and audition schedules will soon be announced. The tweet of Lauren Dyogi was later confirmed in the finale of the first season that the franchise will have a second season and auditions will commence soon.
Auditions
Auditions for the first season started in September 2012. Open call auditions were held on September 15, 2012, at Island Pacific Supermarket in Panorama City, Los Angeles, California and on September 16, 2012, at California's Great America Parkway in Santa Clara, California. The said auditions were only open to people with Filipino ancestry in Southern California. Radio screenings were also held from January 7 to 11, 2013 at various ABS-CBN radio stations in key cities such as Metro Manila, Dagupan, Baguio, Naga City, Legazpi City, Iloilo City, Bacolod, Cebu City, Tacloban City, Cagayan de Oro, Davao City, General Santos and Zamboanga City. Radio screenings were called The Voice ng Radyo, wherein daily and weekly winners have the chance to directly go to the Blind auditions. Auditions in key cities throughout the Philippines were announced on the last episode of Sarah G. Live, Sarah Geronimo's night variety show, on February 10, 2013. On the same night, the online auditions were also introduced which ran from February 9 to 19, 2013.Open call auditions for the second season will start in 2014. Auditions for Visayas was held on January 12, for Mindanao on January 19, for Metro Manila on January 26, and in Luzon on February 2.
Filming and set locations
After the initial Producer's auditions, the 121 aspiring artists were then invited for the Blind auditions. The Blind auditions were filmed at Studio 2 of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center in Quezon City from April 15, 2013, until April 18, 2013. While the Battles were filmed at Studio 10 of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center. The said second stage of the competition were filmed on July 8 and 9, 2013. The Newport Performing Arts Theater of Resorts World Manila in Newport City, Pasay served as the official venue of the show for the Live shows and the finale.In an article Lea Salonga wrote in Philippine Daily Inquirer and was published on January 16, 2014, she said the blind auditions for the second seasons will be filmed by June, but were moved to September 7 to 10 of the same year. The Blind auditions were filmed at Studio 10 of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center.