The Voice season 11 live shows premiere this Monday – and there is one heck of a twist! Even though it’s the eve of the U.S. Presidential election, if you want your favorite to survive, you’ll need to tune in that Monday. Forget the sweet sixteen. On Monday the top twenty will be going down to the top twelve!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21shpgTrF9E?rel=0]
Whoa! Basically this means that if you don’t watch and vote next Monday your favorites may go home that night! How are they working this? Here’s the official process from the NBC press release. If they seem too long, skip down to the translation!
The Voice Season 11 Live Shows Premiere Rules
On the special two-hour episode airing Monday, Nov. 7 (8-10 p.m. ET/PT), the Top 20 artists – five artists per team – will all perform on one night for a coveted spot in the Top 12.
During the intense telecast, which also marks Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys first live show appearance, “The Voice” opens up voting like never before through a first-ever real-time vote via“ The Voice” Official App and Twitter. Fans will be able to advance two artists per team into the Top 12 and, for the first time ever, results will be revealed on the same night.Throughout the show, coaches Miley Cyrus, Alicia Keys, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton will then make the nail-biting, immediate decision to save one artist each to complete their roster, while the others are sent home.
The remaining 12 artists will then move on to the final live-show phase of the competition, which begin on Monday, Nov. 14.
During the live playoff telecast, viewers can cast up to 10 votes per artist per team via “The Voice” Official App, which is available for download on the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore here: (http://www.nbc.com/VoiceApp) or they can vote through Twitter at the show’s official handle @NBCTheVoice.
Viewers in the Eastern and Central time zones will be able to watch and vote during the live show. Viewers in the West and Mountain time zones will also be able to cast their vote on “The Voice” Official App and tweet their choice at the same time as the Eastern and Central time zones if they are following the @NBCTheVoice handle, which will announce which artists are eligible.
Translation of the Above Rules:
Here are the rules in a nutshell: You have to pick your two favorite artists from each team and on Monday vote for them like mad! On the app you can only vote 10 times per artist, but you can also vote using Twitter by tweeting @NBCTheVoice and the name of the artist.
Still confused? Don’t worry, you probably aren’t alone. Here’s my hypothesis on how this will work.
- There will be a window of time to vote for an artist after they perform.
- That score will then become the score to beat – like in the Olympics.
As the scores come in the coaches will likely already have in mind whom they want as their team of three. If two of them get voted in then they’ve got an easy job. If not, then they will have to choose between their favorites.
Here’s one scenario. Let’s say the 2nd artist that performs is a coach’s top choice, but the next two singers on the team beat his or her score. That coach doesn’t have to wait for the final performer on the team to sing. The coach will announce they’ve decided to save that second singer. That’s how come the saves of the coaches will be random throughout the night.
The Wrap Up: Pros and Cons
The only downsides are these:
- If you don’t have a smartphone or a computer with internet access you can’t vote.
- Not using the phone lines immediately cuts out those that are economically disadvantaged. So people on Indian reservations, rural areas and urban housing projects will have less voting access.
- The workaround for the West and Mountain time zones aren’t great. People in those time zones they are going to need to monitor Twitter starting at 5pm and 6pm respectively. That’s in the middle of rush hour for anyone working 9-5.
- I also don’t know if the performances will be put up on YouTube so that people in those time zones can see them before voting. If not, then they will be voting based solely on prior performances.
In the usual format viewers have more time to really consider the latest performances, which may influence some people’s choices. For the most part though, people have already picked their favorites. Doing it this way will still give singers one last chance to change a viewer’s mind about who they love the most.
However, because they’ll have to vote right after they sing there won’t be the same ability to weigh one performance against another. It means the performances in the Knockout Rounds are going to be more important. If you missed them, or need a refresher you can see all of those performances here: Knockouts day 1, Knockouts day 2, Knockouts day 3.
Here are the Upsides
Of course, the real motivation the show had for doing it this way is because that Tuesday is Election day. Doing a results show to find out if your favorite singer won on the same night people are waiting to see who the next President of United States is would have been ridiculous! That night the only thing the major networks will be doing is reporting election results. Even if they weren’t, that’s what most Americans will be looking for.
NBC and the producers of The Voice had two choices. They could have done the live show as usual and postponed the results to the following Monday. That would have been torturous, and who knows what people’s moods will be after the election. Despite the downsides to this new format, it’s better than the alternative.
What’s really smart about this setup is that it gives people a reason to watch live. It’s also a great distraction for the eve of the Presidential election. This has been the ugliest race in recent history. The night before election day you can bet the rhetoric will be ramped up even higher. I’ll be recapping live Monday, so you can follow along here if you don’t have twitter or TV access. Two hours to not think about politics will be a welcome relief!
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