Losing Voice.

Music PopJustice has a column about the BBC's Saturday night pop talent content The Voice which notes that the first single from the winner of the last series, Leah McFall, went in at the high fifties in the pop charts despite being a pretty good pop song with the participation of William, sorry, Will.I.Am.

It notes that if a talent contest about singing can't produce successful singers, that it's a broken format. Of course it is but I think PopJustice misses the truth of it.

It's not that Radio One won't support the singers produced by the show, it's that it can't.

As previous winner Bo Bruce has identified, the BBC's own restrictions about cross promotion mean that Radio One can't A-playlist songs and heavily play them across the networks.  If they tried, the Trust would have an aneurysm which would lead to the press printing endless articles about them stepping outside of their remit.

But as PJ notes the given artist is also screwed because the commercial stations won't touch her either, presumably because they hate the BBC despite the fact that most of the artists they play were discovered by the BBC (who can play whatever other music they want) and also because they're part of the Syco promotion machine.

Now, I haven't watched one of these musical talent shows since Fame Academy which ultimate experienced similar problems, but for The Voice to exist as a thing going forward, which is somewhat important for some of us since it's somewhat wrapped up in the Saturday night Doctor Who whirlwind.

The BBC's restrictions are going to change any time soon.  They essentially exist so that Syco and the likem can't cry foul about a publicly funded body restricting them commercially.

Perhaps the prize needs to change.  A slot on Eurovision is problematic since as we've seen before it has the ability to destroy careers or at the very least not help them much and becoming the singer on a charity record brings other baggage.

Well, hum.  Let me have a think.