The Voice Generations
One of the biggest hits of 2021 was The Voice, which saw a huge surge in ratings after moving from its long time home in Channel Nine to its new broadcaster in Channel Seven. The success of the revamped format led Seven to commission ITV to make a new iteration of the show to fill the gap in its content schedule between the cricket and Winter Olympics.
The solution that ITV produced was The Voice Generations which is a three-night event that invites singers and musicians from different generations to perform together in The Voice arena.
Ahead of the show’s release, Mediaweek spoke to ITV Studios Australia’s CEO and managing director David Mott about how this new format came about and what it means for the future of The Voice.
When asked about the origin of this new format, Mott said that it came off the back of last year’s success of The Voice.
“Seven was very keen to explore an option for the top of the year. So we discussed some other iterations of The Voice. There’s Voice Senior, there is Voice Kids, and we looked at the demographic profile of what the environment looks like at that time of the year and with the competition and the sets in use, the full landscape with lead in brands and lead out brands and all those sorts of things. It was a real deep dive in terms of what an opportunity looks like. With the Seven team and us at ITV Studios, we came up with an iteration of Voice Generations.”
David Mott
Mott said that Generations is a very new brand but that it’s also now going to be released in Lithuania aswell off the back of the development work that ITV and Seven had put into the format.
“We chose Voice Generations because it is smack bang in the zeitgeist of now. If you think about Covid, if you think about being separated from families and friends, and it and looking at what is the right audience to target and Voice Generation has ticked all those boxes. Because it is a celebration of being with friends or family. Looking at shows like Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds, that combination of young with old shows what a beautiful kind of palette that can be. We thought let’s bring multiple generations together on stage. And that’s what we pitched to Seven and they loved it.”
When asked about how the show fits perfectly into Seven’s gap in its schedule, Mott said it was designed exactly for that but that it can also be scaled up in the future.
“ITV and Seven are both very happy with the product. We’ll see how how it performs. But certainly, it feels right. And there is a lot of global interest in the format. From a Voice brand perspective, it does fit very nicely in terms of the other iterations since it doesn’t cut across any of them. There was no question based on the level of performers who wanted to participate in the show that you could definitely do a longer run of it.”
Mott said that the casting was crucial to a show like this and that the production used a full casting team as they do for all their shows.
“People say that we’re running out of talent in this country, absolute rubbish. It was the first opportunity where these generations of families or friends get to perform together. That doesn’t work on the main series of The Voice or the kid’s version of The Voice. So the talent is quite extraordinary. We had no trouble at all. In fact, we had an embarrassment of riches, we could have done a much longer run of the series, but Seven had scheduling requirements.”
With the format seeing a drastic reduction in the episode as it was downsized from a several week run to a three-night event, Mott said that they were still able to keep the most popular parts of the show in a streamlined format.
“We ensured that we had a decent dose of the blind auditions because that’s what people love is those chair turns. And so that occupies the first two episodes. And then we run through the battles semis leading into the finals. We don’t have as many acts off the top as each of the coaches have less to choose from. But that makes it even more interesting because they only know that they’ve got two acts that they can choose.”
The Voice premiers 7:30pm, Monday, January 31st on Seven and 7Plus.