Behind new reality show are three men determined to challenge the X Factor and Britain's Got Talent – but at huge risk
It may look like on-screen entertainment, but behind the scenes the arrival of The Voice means television war. Only one enemy is in the programme's sights – Simon Cowell and his ITV juggernauts, The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent.
Half a million pounds of licence fee payers' money is being spent on will.i.am's fee alone; the Black Eyed Peas frontman is raking in half the £1m talent bill. Veteran crooner Sir Tom Jones is taking home an estimated £250,000, Jessie J a little less, and the relatively unknown Danny O'Donoghue from the Script is still pulling in six figures.
Only the million pounds demanded by Kylie Minogue's manager was deemed to be too much – and a behind-the-scenes war of words has broken out between the BBC and the Voice team, and ITV and Cowell's allies over the cost of the show. will.i.am and all are committed only for the first year of a programme derided by ITV insiders as "derivative" and which the BBC insists is "Reithian" entertainment that will only end up costing the corporation £500,000 a hour.
Behind the scenes lurk three men all determined to give Cowell a run for his money. The Voice originated as a Dutch show, the brainchild of John de Mol, the billionaire television producer who has been casting around for a hit he owns to match the success of his Big Brother, which is now owned by a company – Endemol – that he no longer controls.
His first business partner is Cowell's biggest rival in the music business: Lucian Grainge, the British chief executive of Universal Music, the only record company bigger than Sony, to which Cowell is affiliated. Grainge has been casting around for years for a format to dent Cowell's pop dominance; winners will win a record contract with Universal.
Cracking the UK was not easy though: Cowell's lock on ITV, and the fact that the BBC is a non-commercial broadcaster, made the choice between the two difficult. But the third member of the trio, BBC1 controller Danny Cohen, is an enthusiast for celebrity (having launched Lily Allen's ill-starred chat show on BBC3) and is hungry for a springtime hit on the scale of the ageing Strictly Come Dancing.
De Mol chose the BBC's £11m-a-year bid – even though ITV bid more, about £15m, as the Dutchman feared the latter would kill the show with a lack of promotion. Three of the four judges – will.i.am, Jones and Jessie J – are signed to Universal, a fact the record company says is an editorial decision of the BBC, but that Sony believes is unfair, even if O'Donoghue is on one of their labels.
Cohen repaid the faith with heavy personal involvement. One rumour even holds that he travelled to Luton airport to meet will.i.am, who was stopping over on a private jet. Cohen, away on honeymoon for a fortnight after getting married to anti-globalisation academic Noreena Hertz, has not commented – but it is clear that he and the other two in the anti-Cowell camp have their reputations on the line should The Voice flop.