20 January 2011 week 03 The other talent show New, different, exciting: RTL 4’s The Voice of Holland Germany France Hindenburg premieres Groupe M6 honoured for in Berlin its diversity United States Netherlands American Idol returns for RTL Nieuws publishes season 10 Wikileaks documents the RTL Group intranet week 03 20 January 2011 week 03 Cover: Montage showing the four finalists of The Voice of Holland. The other talent show 2 New, different, exciting: RTL 4’s The Voice of Holland Germany France Hindenburg premieres Groupe M6 honoured for in Berlin its diversity United States Netherlands American Idol returns for RTL Nieuws publishes season 10 Wikileaks documents the RTL Group intranet week 03 It’s the voice that counts The Voice of Holland has re-invented the talent show format by taking a new approach. With the finale in sight, Backstage asked Erland Galjaard to talk about the format. Netherlands - 20 January 2011 Even the casting process for RTL 4’s innova- “The Voice of Holland is more than a ‘regular’ tive talent show was different from other talent talent show,” says Erland Galjaard, Program- shows. Candidates had several different op- ming Director at RTL 4. “With the blind auditions, tions to enter the show: either by responding to the extremely limited number of candidates, promotional spots on RTL 4 and apply directly. who were often highly professional, a live band Also, potential candidates could audition online created from scratch, and very popular coaches by passing muster with a virtual jury, which auto- who also performed during the live shows, this matically decided based on their vocal merits – was essentially a new format – the next step, as range, expression and musicality – whether the it were.” candidate would be given the chance at a slot on the TV show. The number of times the video was The format was presented at the annual viewed, and the scores given by other Internet programme press conference held by RTL users, were included in the decision as well. Nederland. “It’s not meant to replace X Factor Finally, talent scouts searched in clubs, theatres, nor Holland’s Got Talent,” says Galjaard. “It is music schools for talents and invited them to the part of a strategic schedule in which we claimed auditions. a whole slot for a whole year in the same very popular genre skewed towards young viewers.” In total, these calls for contestants produced Thus The Voice of Holland went on air in 7,000 applications who came to a screen- September – right after Holland’s Got Talent ing. Only the 150 best of them started in the had finished. And as soon as the finale will be TV programme and performed in front of the over, X Factor will go on air again. coaches Nick & Simon, Jeroen van der Boom, Van Velzen and Angela Groothuizen. They On Friday 21 January, the winner of the first edi- had to decide, with their back to the stage, tion of The voice of Holland will finally be known. It whether a candidate should be in their team will either be Pearl Jozefzoon, Leonie Meijer, Kim or not – judging only the candidates’ voices. de Boer or Ben Saunders. From 21:00, the finale About 70 candidates then made it to the second will also broadcast live on Radio 538. To date, stage of the show. The radio partner Radio 538 The Voice of Holland has attracted an average gave away 4 wildcards for this second stage 2.7 million viewers per episode, making it the of the show. The Voice of Holland is hosted by most-watched talent show ever on RTL 4 – Martijn Krabbé, Wendy van Dijk and Winston followed by Idols season 2 (2003/04) with Gerschtanowitz. an average 2.5 million viewers per episode. The finalists: Kim, Pearl, Ben and Leonie (from left to right) 3 the RTL Group intranet week 03 The first season of Idols (2002/03) is third with around 2.3 million viewers. A look at the audience shares shows a similar picture: up to 54 per cent of the channel’s target group (shoppers aged 20 to 49) tuned in to The Voice of Holland, with an average audience share of 47 per cent in this demographic (Idols season 2: 43 per cent; Idols season 1: 42 per cent). For the filming of the last eight shows at the Lukkien studio in Ede there was a live audience of 1,400 each time. However, the programme saw its biggest live audience ever on Wednesday 19 January when (ex-)candidate Lenny Keylard performed in front of 50,000 people at the Ajax and Feyenoord football game. Vodafone is a partner of The Voice of Holland and provides viewers and subscribers with Erland Galjaard Talpa-produced programmes and information about the candidates on the mobile Internet. golden single, which is awarded for more than The contestants and viewers use a mobile web 10,000 downloads. Erland Galjaard explains application to communicate with each other: his popularity: “Ben is a unique person, ex- they were able to contact their fans at any time, tremely talented, extreme looks, and still wherever they were, to give them the latest ‘one of the guys’, a normal boy who is update on their experiences. In November, not impressed by all the attention. He had Arno Otto, Managing Director Digital Media at over 2 million people watching his audition on RTL Nederland, had told Backstage: “We’ve Youtube but still is very tangible and friendly – been talking about cross-media for more than down to earth.” ten years now, but I believe that The Voice Of Holland is the first true and 100 per cent cross- The finalists’ four singles have been available for media format.” download since the semifinal was broadcast on 14 January. On the afternoon of 21 January, the The many possibilities offered by online tools numbers downloaded will be very important as have never been used so extensively in a major they will also count towards the end result and TV programme as for The Voice of Holland. help determine the winner, who will be given the According to the Stir survey for the period chance to record a single followed by an album, August to November 2010, the show’s website get a car and be Kane’s supporting act during was visited by about 1.9 million people aged three of the Dutch rock band’s concert at the 13 and over. Excerpts from the various audi- Ahoy in Rotterdam. A second season is already tions were viewed numerous times on Youtube, planned, as Galjaard confirmes: “We plan to start with Ben Saunders taking the lead by generat- with The Voice of Holland 2 i n S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 1 . ” ing nearly two million views. The programme has more than 79,000 friends on the social In fact RTL Nederland aims to exploit the format network Hyves, not including the friends for longer than it is broadcast on screen. The each candidate won individually since their company started marketing the show some participation in the show. The number of weeks prior to the broadcast, then launched a Facebook friends comes to nearly 40,000, and the programme has about 36,000 followers on “We’ve been talking about Twitter. cross-media for more than ten years now, but For the first time as well, the public I believe that The Voice is able to directly download full (three-minute) tracks of the songs sung by the participants of Holland is the first in the live show. This sent The Voice of true and 100 per cent Holland into the Dutch top 100 single charts cross-media format.” 30 times. Singles by Ben Saunders went to Arno Otto, Managing Director Digital Media number one twice, and one song even won a at RTL Nederland 4 the RTL Group intranet week 03 Nick and Simon, Van Velzen, Angela Groothuizen, Jeroen van der Boom and Martijn Krabbé (from left to right) reality show and a printed magazine during the broadcast and aims to market the tail for many more weeks after the finale. One option will be to organise events such as live concerts. This concept already proved successful in late 2010, when a series of four concerts featuring the final 12 candidates performing on the stage of the emblematic Heineken Music Hall between Christmas and New Year’s sold out completely, drawing 20,000 music aficionados in all. “Because of the immense popularity of the TV show, the real- life series, the magazine and all the media attention, all contestants are considered famous artists – stars if you want – and the concert was a Watch the finale perfect way to see and hear them on 21 January at 20:30 perform live,” explains Galjaard. on RTL 4 The format was developed by the pro- duction company Talpa Media in con- junction with RTL Nederland. “We helped develop the format from scratch, made vital edits to its structure and the look and feel of the concept,” says Galjaard.”The Voice of Hol- land will be a serious competitor for all talent shows in every country. The fact that within just a few months, big markets like the US and France have decided to produce their own versions says it all.” 5 the RTL Group intranet week 03 Great entertainment Teamworx produced one of the most elaborate TV movies of the 2011 TV year for RTL Television. This week, Hindenburg premiered in Berlin. The Hindenburg in the TV movie Germany - 19 January 2011 “Now that’s great entertainment!” – This senti- On May 6, 1937 the biggest airship built to ment might have been expressed by any one date went up in flames in Lakehurst near of the more than 550 guests who attended New York as it was trying to complete a landing the premiere in Berlin of the two-part TV movie delayed by a storm.