The Voice of the Philippines is a Philippine reality television singing competition on ABS-CBN. It is based on the reality singing competition The Voice of Holland, which was originally created by Dutch television producer John de Mol as part of The Voice franchise. Toni Gonzaga has been hosting the show since the first season; on the other hand, Luis Manzano, who had crossed over from The Voice Kids, had hosted the show since the second season. Both are accompanied by Robi Domingo and Alex Gonzaga who serves as the show's V-Reporters or the social media and backstage correspondents. Sarah Geronimo, Bamboo Mañalac, Lea Salonga, and apl.de.ap serve as the four coaches and the judging panel of the show.
The show first aired on June 15, 2013, replacing Pilipinas Got Talent, and has aired for two seasons; it had produced two winners: Mitoy Yonting and Jason Dy. The show ended on March 1, 2015, and was replaced by Your Face Sounds Familiar.
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 (thirteen artists in the first season; fourteen in the second season) 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 (in the first season, one pair of three artists were included). 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.