The Voice SA returned for Season 2 this week (on M-Net on Sunday at 17h30 and M-Net City on Monday at 18h00) and it's back with a much better set-up for the live shows than Season 1.
Last season the voting was highly influenced by the fact that every judge had to have a finalist in the finals, which was very unfair on the contestants.
It meant that the competition was biased because this rule was more important than the talent of each individual.
As you may remember, this was the format: the contestant with the least number of votes in each team got eliminated during the live shows instead of the contestants with the overall lowest votes across teams.
If two singers on Team A received more votes than the most popular singer on Team B, one of the Team A singers had to go, which was all kinds of wrong.
Ultimately it meant that the final Top 4 might not have been the Top 4. I ranted about it
in my final column of the season and today I'm pleased to report that this rule has been whacked and changed for the new season. #Yaydom!
The new format means that any of the contestants can leave any of the live shows at any time during the process. Whoever gets the least number of votes is O.U.T., regardless of which team they're on.
It makes it much more fair on the contestants and it adds a juicy competitive edge to the judges' battle because it means that one judge can end up with four contenders in the final, while the others have zilch.