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'The Sing-Off' effect: Is there room for more talent competitions on TV?
By most accounts, Season 2 of "The Sing-Off" was a major success for NBC with Monday's (Dec. 20) finale attracting 8.5 million viewers and placing first among the coveted 18 to 49-year-old audience.
But, does its success prove that the TV viewing audience wants more talent competitions?
With its ratings as they were, "The Sing-Off" is ripe for exploitation, but executive producer Joel Gallen is fine with the show's limited run.
"I think we should do as few shows as possible," Gallen tells Zap2it. "We don't want to go by the typical, you know, success, ratings and all of a sudden let's go to five years of episodes, get overexposed, oversaturate the concept. That's my biggest fear to be honest with you."
That's music to some people's ears. But while "The Sing-Off" keeps itself contained, the show's success was a perfect opportunity for NBC to announce its new singing competition, "The Voice of America," which will be executive produced by "Survivor's" Mark Burnett.
"'[The] Sing-Off' gave us enormous confidence that people are embracing quality singing talent when they see it," NBC's alternative chief Paul Telegdy tells THR after the announcement.
Based on Holland's hit singing competition, in which contestants go unseen and are chosen by their singing voice alone, the American version may go head-to-head next spring against "American Idol." Holland's version has beaten both its "Idol" and "X-Factor" shows in the ratings and NBC is hoping lighting will strike twice.
Do you think "The Sing-Off's" success means TV audiences will watch another talent competition? Will you be watching "The Voice of America"?
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Photo/Video credit: NBC
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What was good about the Sing-Off, besides the good voices and competent judges, was that is was short and sweet. Just 3 weeks to invest and enjoy, not mind-numbing stupid audition shows. A quality, tightly focused show will probably succeed.
If "The Voice of America" ends up going against some of the other shows I enjoy watching, it is highly doubtful that I'll be watching this new show. Besides, why put a new show on when you've got a hugely successful show like "The Sing-Off"?!
The success of "The Sing Off" can be attributed to a few factors. First and foremost, they offer a high quality of talent (there were no bad groups in this crop). Also, there has not been a singing competition on the air since "Idol" wrapped for the season. People were ready for this type of show again.
If you put "The Sing Off" directly on in competition with "American Idol", I doubt it would score as well on the ratings meter. Remember, we first met Kara when she was a judge for ABC's Idol knock off, "The One". That launched right after "Idol" wrapped and lasted, maybe 2 airings.
I enjoyed The Sing-Off. There were no bad groups (as Louis mentioned), and the judging was decent (although I often cringed at some of Nicole's Paula-like comments). The highlights of the show for me were Street Corner's Symphony's CCR performance, Committed's Usher & Al Green performances, and most of Ben Folds judging. But "The Voice Of America" needs a better title, is up against stiffer competition, and looks in general like it's going to fail, even if it has a twist of singers being chosen based on singing voice alone. I agree with Taylor that The Sing-Off was short and sweet -- not overly drawn out.