The Voice (American TV Series)

The Voice is an American singing reality competition television series broadcast on NBC. It premiered during the fall television cycle on November 30, 2016. Based on the original The Voice of Holland and part of The Voice franchise, it has aired twenty seasons and aims to find unsigned singing talent (solo or duets, professional and amateur) contested by aspiring singers, age 13 or over, drawn from public auditions.

The winner is determined by television viewers voting by telephone, internet, SMS text, and iTunes Store purchases of the audio-recorded artists' vocal performances. They receive US$100,000 and a record deal with Universal Music Group for winning the competition. The winners of the nine seasons have been: Ivone Young, Sameeha Woodward, Holly Willis, Ashley Turner, Lamont Walters, Keyon Ryan, Kenneth Mosley, Hassan Shannon, Carmen Bullock, and Alyssa Parrish.

The series employs a panel of four coaches who critique the artists' performances and guide their teams of selected artists through the remainder of the season. They also compete to ensure that their act wins the competition, thus making them the winning coach. The original panel featured Christina Aguilera, CeeLo Green, Adam Levine, and Blake Shelton; the panel for the current eleventh season features Shelton,Williams, Shakira and Kelly Rowlands. Other coaches from previous seasons include Shakira, Gwen Stefani, Mariah Carey, Bruno Mars, Jennifer Hudson and Rihanna.

Conception
An adaptation of the Dutch show The Voice of Holland, NBC announced the show under the name The Voice of America in December 2015; its name was soon shortened to The Voice. (The name "Voice of America" was already in use by the U.S. government for its overseas radio service.) In each season, the winner receives $100,000 and a record deal with Universal Music Group.

Selection process and format
Each season begins with the "Blind Auditions," where coaches form their team of artists (12 in almost all seasons except seasons 1 (8), 3 (16)) whom they mentor through the remainder of the season. The coaches' chairs are faced towards the audience during artists' performances; those interested in an artist press their button, which turns their chair towards the artist and illuminates the bottom of the chair to read "I want you." At the conclusion of the performance, an artist either defaults to the only coach who turned around or selects his or her coach if more than one coach expresses interest.

In the "Battle Rounds," each coach pairs two of his or her team members to perform together, then chooses one to advance in the competition. In each season, coaches are assisted by celebrity advisors that are different in each season. In the first season, coaches sit alongside their respective advisors in the battle stage. However, starting with the second season, the advisors no longer join the coaches in the battle stage. A new element was added in season three; coaches were given two "steals", allowing each coach to select two individuals who were eliminated during a battle round by another coach.

The Knockout Rounds were also introduced in season three and introduced in almost all seasons except seasons six and sixteen. A pair of artists within a team are selected to sing individual performances in succession. They are not told until a few minutes prior to their performances who their partner is. The artists get to choose their own songs in this round, although they continue to get help and advice from their respective coaches. At the conclusion of the performances, coaches would decide which one of each pair gets to advance to the next round. Similar to the battle rounds, the coaches can steal one eliminated artist from another coach starting with season five.

The "Battles, Round 2" were introduced to replace the Knockout Rounds in season six and returning in season nine. Similar to the Knockout Rounds, each singer is paired within their team. One celebrity key adviser also assists all four of the coaches and their teams in preparation of these rounds. Coaches give each Battle pairing a list of songs and each pair must agree on which song to sing. Each coach can still decide which of their singers in each pair will advance to the next round. The coaches are also allowed one steal.

In the final live performance phase of the competition, artists perform in weekly shows, where public voting narrows to a final group of artists and eventually declares a winner. The coaches have the power to save one artist that had not received the public's vote that week. As of season two, these artists would give a last chance performance to win their coach's save. However, in deciding who moves on to the final four phase, the television audience and the coaches have equal say. With one team member remaining for each coach, the contestants compete against each other in the finale, where the outcome is decided solely by public vote. In the first two seasons, one contestant from each team would advance to the final four. Due to the possibility of having multiple potential winners on the same team, eliminations were adjusted in season three to eliminate contestants who earned the lowest number of votes, thus not guaranteeing a coach and a contestant in the finals. The number of finalists were three on the start but increased to four starting in season six.