If You Were Producer What Rules Would You Make?

[thevoiceswimmer]

Hi everybody, I hope you're all doing well. Thought I would create another fun thread for everyone to weigh in on. So I was wondering if you were a producer, what changes would you make. Feel free to repeat if need be, here a few rules I would add if I could change the show entirely.

 

1. Winners Audition Songs are Banned- I think this would be a small and simple way to pay homage to the winners. So songs like "Time After Time", "Complicated", and "Torn", would not be allowed to be sung on the show anymore. Some of the songs have only been done once, like "Constant Man of Sorrow" or "I've Been Loving You", but many have been repeated, "Time After Time" ,"Complicated", Chandelier" ,"The Chain" ,"Try", etc.. and it would just be a little respect to those who came before them 

2. More Alumni Performances On Results- This one is pretty self-explanatory, but let's promote these artists after the show and try to make a household name. 

3. 2 Steals in the Battles, 1 in the Knockouts, no Saves- I personally like the steals more than the saves since it's exciting for artists to work with new coaches rather than just sticking around on the same team

4. 3 People Finales Again with no Instant Save Semi-Finals Week (Seasons 3, 4, and 5)- I personally like having less people in a finale episode because it heightens the stakes more and I dislike the instant save in the Semi-Finals because no one who's won the Instant Save has won the show, so they always seem like dead weight to me because it's most likely they'll end up in fourth (With Britton being the only exception)

5. More Live Shows* (i.e. Old School American Idol)-   20-13-11-10-8-7-6-5-3 would be my personal preference because one a week, every week can be a bit slow, but it raises drama and suspense in the semifinals and cuts the fat a little a bit quicker in the beginning, meaning more performances from the good and less from the bad *Feel free to comment your own week pacing

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by thevoiceswimmer

[QueenMae16]

Number 1: No montages. like the disrespect I just-

#2: getting rid of backstory and rehearsal time. We don't need to be reminded of your pet pony dying every performance, and we don't need to see the notes your coach gives you.

#3: No special treatment or bussing attempts. we don't want to see someone like Kennedy(s15) getting the pimp spot all the time, or Kat(s17) getting shattered by going 2nd and 3rd every week. Enough with the favoritism treatment. Also don't try to give a terrible song for a threat to your favorites TPTB, we see you easily lmao. 

#4: Get rid of Instant Saves. Not even everyone can vote in the country at the same time, they will have to rely on previous performances to make a judgement since they can't hear the last-chance performance. Sorry, but if you fail to deliver on performance night, you don't get a 2nd chance.

#5: Bring back more lives and more performances. Like the OP said, we don't need all these pre-live shenanigans, we want to hear the artist sing live and as much as possible to make a judgement. A 20-12-11-10-8-6-5-4 would be fine. I actually think 4 finalists is better opposed to just 3. In the Top 8 they can start to sing 2 songs each, Top 4 will have 3 performances. New Cover/Original/Coach Duet(even if Coach Duet's can be disasters lmao, so maybe another Cover would be fine.) 

#6: Let the artists pick their own songs freely omg! I know they have limited freedom now between like 4 songs each(unless its TCO) but let them pick the song! As a producer, I would even try my best to get the rights to that song if certain artist wants it. 

#7: Make sure the coaches are 100% committed to their artists, I'm not having half-assed industry "stars" coming in for the paycheck and to goof off in front of the cameras for comedy. Artists want a career and path towards music, yes have fun with them, but most importantly... HELP THEM 100%. Your next generic album can wait til the end of time for all I care.

#8: Get rid of Battles, useless and unfair. Only KO's will be the pre-live elimination round. 

#9: Reduce contestants to 32, 8 per coach. We don't need so many, 32 is fine.

#10: 2 Rounds of Knockouts. 32 - 24 in round 1, 2 steals per coach. Round 2 is 24 - 20, also 2 steals each. 

Meh, too lazy to think of more, but this is the major priorities I'd say. 

[MatthewPalermo]

breathes in heavily

 

-Get rid of montages entirely. Even for the contestants who turned 0 chairs. Everyone who got on the blind auditions deserves to be shown in full.

 

-Decrease the backstory in the auditions to show more contestants faster. We don't care about your best friend's dog passing, sorry. Just sing.

 

-Cut the rehearsals in the battles and KOs to allow 1 pairing every 10 minutes WITH RESULTS. Give a quick summary of who the contestants are and what they're singing, no more than 3 minutes for this. Two steals in battles, one steal in KOs. No saves.

 

-Keep the number of contestants the same (48 chair turns, 32 after battles, 20 in playoffs), but make this all happen in 4 weeks giving a solid 9 weeks of lives.

 

-Or, only make one season a year but make the season last 4 months instead of 3 (with most of the time being spent on lives). 

 

-If there's 9 weeks to whittle down 20 contestants, go in this order: 20->16->14->12->10->8->6->4->3 being the finale. The top 20 will allow 3 contestants from each team to get the PV, and the coach saves one more. Afterwards, two leave each week until the top 4 where one goes home. During the top 6 and top 4 performance shows, each contestant performs twice.

 

-If there's a longer season, increase the cap of contestants per team from 12 to 15. Spend 6 weeks on pre-taped performances, and 10 weeks on lives. The first live show is a top 32 (8 contestants per team), and each coach gets 6 for a top 24 (5 for PV one for CS). The remaining 9 weeks go as follows: 24->20->16->12->10->8->6->4->3 (4 contestants go home early to quickly eliminate any fodder that reaches that far). The top 32 would be split over 3 nights (16 performances Monday, 16 performances Tuesday, results Wednesday).

 

-Randomize the order in the live shows to prevent any unnecessary pimping.

 

-Eliminate the instant save and wildcard votes. If you have the least votes, you're out. 

 

-In the finale, each contestant gets a cover and a coach duet as expected, but instead of a terrible original, the third performance is a "reprise" where America can vote on any past performance from a contestant and whatever has the most votes will win. Due to time restraints required for rehearsals, the vote would open the day after the top 3 are revealed and close after 12 hours. However, a cover would still end up being the closer.

-Reveal the vote percentages for every week of lives after the season ends for the truly curious.

 

-Stop the autotune. If you're pitchy, too bad. Everyone hears it.

 

-Force the coaches to treat the contestants equally without any favoritism.

 

-All of the finalists receive a free car, but everyone who makes top 10 receives a cash prize for making it that deep. The amount will vary depending on placement.

 

-Make one of the results shows an "alumni" night, where the top 3 from the past season perform. However, non-finalist contestants may perform a single periodically. This would also be highly emphasized on the show and across social media.

 

-Strongly advertise the winner and any music they make so the audience doesn't forget about them the day after they win.

Edited April 30, 2020 by MatthewPalermo
Hit enter accidentally before i was done :/

[Archanium]

- One season per year, but each season will be longer (more lives) 

- Make All-Stars season after every 5 seasons

- No montages, no bussing, fair game for all.

 

[Walker359718]

I definitely think there should be less montages.  Also, cut out all the extra fluff (i.e. backstories).  With the amount of commercial time as it is now, I think this is a good change.

 

I agree with randomizing the performance order more, and try to tone down on favoritism.

 

I also agree with 48 -> 32 -> 20 in 4 weeks.  This would mean more live shows, and maybe no more mass-slaughter eliminations.

 

More songs for contestants to choose from each week.

 

No more autotune.

 

To compensate for high numbers of robbed contestants, any contestant who made it past the blind auditions, but didn't make it past the first week of live shows, can re-audition in another season (this also works well for contestants who made it that far but were montaged).

Edited April 30, 2020 by Walker359718

[MatthewPalermo]

2 minutes ago, Walker359718 said:

To compensate for high numbers of robbed contestants, any contestant who made it past the blind auditions, but didn't make it past the first week of live shows, can re-audition in another season (this also works well for contestants who made it this far but were montaged).

I think this would be better for contestants who were eliminated in the battles or KOs ONLY if there were no steals left when they were performing. 

 

They'd likely skip the open call process and get a return ticket to the blind auditions. They should also have the option to decline for whatever reason, no questions asked.

Edited April 30, 2020 by MatthewPalermo

[VintageVoice]

1. No montaging (or at the very least if for whatever reason they insist on keeping it, nobody is allowed to be montaged more than once and no-chairs at the BAs aren't allowed to be montaged since that's the only time we see them and that's disrespectful of the time/effort/prep it took to get to the blinds). 
2. Less emphasis on backstories during the BAs; I like seeing the behind-the-scenes during battles and KOs but that has to be focused on the contest and not fluff like "your earrings are so cute" or whatever. 
3. Fire anyone who ever tries to reinstate the Cross Battles.
4. Cut back to one season a year in the fall so we get AI in the spring, AGT in the summer, and TV in the fall for a year-round rotation of singing competitions and can focus on one at a time.
5. More randomized performance order so TCOs aren't so blatantly obvious. 
6. Give a wider number of songs to choose from and look at artists that the contestants have listed as inspirations/stylistic influence - for example, if contestant XYZ says that Aretha Franklin is a big influence, keep them to similar artists but find ways to push the edges of the comfort zone; someone that can nail Aretha might do better with Adele or Alicia Keys if you want them to do a more contemporary song than if you throw them a Katy Perry or Taylor Swift number.
7. Live shows go 20 -> 12 -> 10 -> 8 -> 6 -> 4 (so only one early-on bloodbath and there's a chance all four coaches could make the finale). This way producers don't have to deal with costs from a gazillion episodes but there's no bloodbaths past the beginning; additionally, just having two PVs and a coach's save gets rid of any attempts at pimping/TPTB playing favorites with a team in a wildcard or instant save scenario.
8. Toss the Instant Save straight into the garbage, it doesn't help singers that come from not-the-South because their hometowns can't watch and vote based on their IS performances and Twitter/app notifications are super unreliable. 
9. Don't pull a HaldenVang on the rock singers and force them into a pop lane, especially as the R&B and country singers don't get the same treatment.
10. Any battle/KO eliminations cut may re-audition after a certain time limit (say, not the season immediately after, but if a singer from season 19 wanted to come back for season 21, that would be fine) and gets to go directly to the blinds. Obviously, they can't force people to re-audition if they don't want to, but if there was a singer that wanted to come back then they could.
11. Two shows per week so auditions could be done in three weeks, then battles in two and KOs in one, which means with my proposed six weeks of live shows there's an even split between pre-taped and live-studio work.
12. Promote the most recent winner/finalists during the live shows by bringing them back to perform at least once each on the season following their win (maybe 3rd and 4th during top 12, and winner/runner up during top 10 so they get the promotion before shifting the focus more to the current contestants).

[holinessss]

stop fake "themes"

 

stop mashup duets

[Someone648]

A lot of the stuff posted on here is ideal, but not entirely possible. It's just the way TV works. We're not gonna get lives lasting 10-12 weeks, we're not gonna get rid of montages in full anytime soon or completely eliminate backstories.

Not in any particular order, just as they come to mind.

 

1. I understand the need for montages, but out of respect for the contestants that are putting months of their lives on hold for this opportunity, at LEAST post the full performances online. It's horrible that contestants have put so much into the show and get 10 seconds total to show for it. You have the footage and if there's not enough airtime, you can AT LEAST have the decency to give them something to reflect upon their time on the show. Alternatively, shortclipping one-chair contestant auditions down to 45-ish seconds (like Colton Smith and Kayley Hill in S15) would reduce the need for full-on montages. and give more airtime to whatever is needed.

2. Promote your winners/former contestants during live shows. The show has the reputation of creating zero "superstars" over the course of 10 years and while it's true that times have changed and a TV show isn't the best way to launch a career in the industry anymore, completely forgetting to acknowledge your previous winners or contestants is ridiculous.

3. Don't force a contestant to do something so out of their wheelhouse that it's a hindrance. Spend a little more on your contestants to make sure they get a song that's actually good for them. Somebody recalled the Jake HaldenVang/Shawn Mendes fiasco above and that's the perfect example. So many great contestants have that one performance that fans forget about for being so uncomfortable/inconsistent as their other performances. You can't convince us that the coaches chose that song for the contestant. Hell no.

4. Modify the Instant Save. We all agree it's unfair and excludes a huuuuge size of the country. There's just so many other solutions... leave it on a cliffhanger til the next week but give everyone the chance to vote or announce it the next morning on Today. It'll encourage people to tune in again the next day anyways.

5. You can ABSOLUTELY cut rehearsal time during battles and KO's. There's no reason that each battle or KO should take 15 minutes of airtime. 3-4 minutes to introduce the contestants and show a LITTLE bit of rehearsal, 2 minutes performing, 3 minutes of discussion. That's about 9 minutes. If you make some of those a tad bit shorter than others and increase time for the steal battles/saves, you could hypothetically go from 3 battles/KO's an hour to 5. You could cover your battles with 5 hours of showtime (2/1/2) instead of 6 (2/1/2/1), and use that second Tuesday as a start of KO's (4/8/4) and get all of your KO's done within that timeframe, too. And boom, you have an extra week available for lives. This is obviously just stupid optimistic thinking but it's totally possible...

6. Cut the "superstar" KO advisor/mega mentor/whatever. Usually it's one of the biggest expenses of the season and as far as I know, it doesn't seem to help bring up viewership by a significant amount. Use that on your contestants so they can get the songs they need or to pay for the studios or something else that'll help the CONTESTANTS.

 

 

TL;DR: The show's nothing without its contestants. The coaches are funny and whatever, but they're there to "coach." They're not the ones we need to have so much focus on every week. RESPECT THE CONTESTANTS.

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Someone648

[+Spurrious]

Lots of good ideas here...adding one.

 

A song is a piece of art.  Chopping out relevant lyrics to make it fit the way too brief allotted time is disrespectful of the writer.  That often confuses or obscures the message of the song.  I have heard it is a reason some songs can not get cleared because the writers won't allow what is essentially snippets or re-writes of their songs.  Give the contestants more time to sing the song....maybe even not always the whole song but 90 seconds in the blinds is trash.  BTW:  sources report the average song play on radio today is 248 seconds....about 4 minutes.  Sure some songs are just too long...pass on those.  I know...I'm asking for more time for the contestants on a show about the celebrities.  Silly me.

 

RESPECT THE CONTESTANTS AND THE MUSIC.

 

 

[VintageVoice]

1 hour ago, Spurrious said:

Lots of good ideas here...adding one.

 

A song is a piece of art.  Chopping out relevant lyrics to make it fit the way too brief allotted time is disrespectful of the writer.  That often confuses or obscures the message of the song.  I have heard it is a reason some songs can not get cleared because the writers won't allow what is essentially snippets or re-writes of their songs.  Give the contestants more time to sing the song....maybe even not always the whole song but 90 seconds in the blinds is trash.  BTW:  sources report the average song play on radio today is 248 seconds....about 4 minutes.  Sure some songs are just too long...pass on those.  I know...I'm asking for more time for the contestants on a show about the celebrities.  Silly me.

 

RESPECT THE CONTESTANTS AND THE MUSIC.

 

 

Heck, even trading 30 seconds of backstory for a full two minutes of a song might result in less issues getting rights for blind audition songs, since it's The Voice and not The Backstory. 

[Vinyl]

Less contestants would take care of the montage problem. Of course, they'd just view that as a reason to have less episodes, and then the montages might increase.

[xfactor22]

1. No montages

2. Longer seasons

3. more diversity in the coaching panel

4. I’m not against back stories as it helps us bond with contestants, just as long as it’s not the same length of the audition performance or longer. Shorten the intro packages so we can get to know the contestants backstory without spending too much time on it. 
5. Don’t go overboard with praising contestants age. Yes we get they are only fifteen, or they’re 95 and this could be there last shot at game. Sure it’s impressive, but the more you mention it, it’s less impressive. 

6. More  diversity in the contestants. Maybe place a genre limit per coach and over all like no more than 2 country or pop contestant per team, and no more than 6 contestants in the same genre overall. That way more genres can be exposed like reggae, Latin, or even heavy metal for whoever’s into that.

7. No more battle saves. Go back to two steals in each battle

8. No more pre-live coach comebacks . Instead, KOs will have 2 steals just like battles, which will still equal the usually top 24 contestants.

7. Steals for battles and KO will wait until the end of the round before the steals start. 

8. Add in a few original song nights, but for those who have trouble writing hire GOOD writers to write them for them. 
9. No more instant saves. 
10. No purposeful bussing

11. There will be a coaches save after live playoffs, but the contestant will perform before a coach picks. But before that after the top 2 public votes are revealed from each team, the person out of the remaining contestants who had the highest votes gets to also advance with their team. 

 

12. the format for the seasons should be 13-12-10-8-6-3 

[Vinyl]

7 hours ago, xfactor22 said:

5. Don’t go overboard with praising contestants age. Yes we get they are only fifteen, or they’re 95 and this could be there last shot at game. Sure it’s impressive, but the more you mention it, it’s less impressive. 

 

The Voice really likes to label the contestants with one thing and then hit the audience over the head with it every episode. With the younger artists, it's their age. There's also being Michael Jackson's backup singer, making sandwiches, looking like Ben Affleck, cantaloupe farming, being a four-chair turn, being a one-chair turn, and the list goes on.

[Someone648]

1 hour ago, Vinyl said:

 

The Voice really likes to label the contestants with one thing and then hit the audience over the head with it every episode. With the younger artists, it's their age. There's also being Michael Jackson's backup singer, making sandwiches, looking like Ben Affleck, cantaloupe farming, being a four-chair turn, being a one-chair turn, and the list goes on.

Ivonne!

[QueenCami]

8 hours ago, xfactor22 said:

6. More  diversity in the contestants. Maybe place a genre limit per coach and over all like no more than 2 country or pop contestant per team, and no more than 6 contestants in the same genre overall. That way more genres can be exposed like reggae, Latin, or even heavy metal for whoever’s into that.

 

genre cap is a bad idea; imagine being a pop singer and finding that John, Kelly, and nick already have their quota of pop singers and... oops, you have to go to Blake's team even though you turned four chairs. Furthermore, where do you draw the line between different genres? This season has already proven that some people exist between or within multiple genres, or people just disagree about genre (see: Samantha Howell, Megan Danielle, Mandi Thomas)

[seak05]

Alright, here is the rule change I would make:

 

The contestant pool is also chosen blind, no backstories, no “look”. When choosing which 100 people to invite to LA for blinds, the producers should do it solely based on voice. 

[Someone648]

8 hours ago, seak05 said:

Alright, here is the rule change I would make:

 

The contestant pool is also chosen blind, no backstories, no “look”. When choosing which 100 people to invite to LA for blinds, the producers should do it solely based on voice. 

I think it sounds nice in theory, but then eventually something like this would happen and it ain't a good look:

https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/2020/02/13/the-voice-holland-teacher-sex-offender-jordan-lee-mcguire-evansville-indiana/4751092002/

[holinessss]

44 minutes ago, Someone648 said:

I think it sounds nice in theory, but then eventually something like this would happen and it ain't a good look:

https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/2020/02/13/the-voice-holland-teacher-sex-offender-jordan-lee-mcguire-evansville-indiana/4751092002/

well then...

 

also (mixing universes) they could end up like half of kassting's choices for BB lol

[seak05]

53 minutes ago, Someone648 said:

I think it sounds nice in theory, but then eventually something like this would happen and it ain't a good look:

https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/2020/02/13/the-voice-holland-teacher-sex-offender-jordan-lee-mcguire-evansville-indiana/4751092002/

I mean you can do a background check before you send the vocal to producers.

[xfactor22]

10 hours ago, ashwinner said:

genre cap is a bad idea; imagine being a pop singer and finding that John, Kelly, and nick already have their quota of pop singers and... oops, you have to go to Blake's team even though you turned four chairs. Furthermore, where do you draw the line between different genres? This season has already proven that some people exist between or within multiple genres, or people just disagree about genre (see: Samantha Howell, Megan Danielle, Mandi Thomas)

 I get your point. But what I mean is when producers are scouting limit the amount of genres for auditioning for blinds.then again I get that someone people like Mandi T can sing any genre. I have a feeling like she’d want to sing more opera if she was allowed to. Also Samantha can also sing any genre. But, yeah Kelly might try to push her into the country lane. But I’ll have to think about that rule. You make good point.  I’m also confused about name-dropping Megan Danielle. What did she disagree on?  

[xfactor22]

12 hours ago, Vinyl said:

 

The Voice really likes to label the contestants with one thing and then hit the audience over the head with it every episode. With the younger artists, it's their age. There's also being Michael Jackson's backup singer, making sandwiches, looking like Ben Affleck, cantaloupe farming, being a four-chair turn, being a one-chair turn, and the list goes on.

Sad but true. But who even looked like Ben Affleck?

[VintageVoice]

1 minute ago, xfactor22 said:

 I get your point. But what I mean is when producers are scouting limit the amount of genres for auditioning for blinds.then again I get that someone people like Mandi T can sing any genre. I have a feeling like she’d want to sing more opera if she was allowed to. Also Samantha can also sing any genre. But, yeah Kelly might try to push her into the country lane. But I’ll have to think about that rule. You make good point.  I’m also confused about name-dropping Megan Danielle. What did she disagree on?  

Megan Danielle is also one that kind of straddles multiple genres - she's got the twang and power to do Patty Griffin (folk-country), but has also done well with Adele (soul/pop/R&B), and has sung Kelly's songs ("Piece by Piece" falls under the pop umbrella but KC has been known to dabble in country and pop-rock), so she's hard to really nail down the way you could with, say, TMH or Mike Jerel.

 

Just now, xfactor22 said:

Sad but true. But who even looked like Ben Affleck?

Steve what's-his-face from season 15, I'm pretty sure.

[Catsy]

Set the age limit back to 18 and spin-off a separate Voice Kids or Voice Teens like they have in other countries.

 

 

 

 

[CdnCountryFan]

Let Canadians vote! Like I mentioned in my other thread, us Canadians were able to vote on Nashville star, and it was an all American show, with one season that had a Canadian contestant. We all have favourites on the show and can’t download the app as it’s only on the American iTunes Store, which isn’t fair! Like I said before as well, had Anders made it to live shows, would tptb change the rules so that his Canadian family and friends could vote for him, or would they be out of luck as well?