On Tuesday night I saw a sneak peek of The Voice SA at the show's launch at Sasani Studios in Joziburg ahead of its premiere on M-Net this Sunday (31 January at 17h30).
My immediate first impression: the contestants can sing!! I'm no singing expert but they sounded excellent to me, especially because they sang with such heart and emotion, which is exactly what we need to see on The Voice.
Contestants need to sing with deep meaning and their voices must be passionate in their plea to be heard and swivelled for and the ones we saw were like this - exactly the sorts of singers one would expect on the show if you've watched the international versions.
Other good news is that the style of the show is true to the international versions too. The look, the feel, the pace, the chairs, the music, the coaches and their reactions are authentically The Voice i.e they haven't messed with the style like they did with Survivor.
The set looks Awse McGaws (awesome) and the relationship between the coaches is authentic too - they aren't afraid to be competitive by taking each other down when they're trying to win a contestant for their team.
What was also good to see is that the coaches aren't sticking to their genre of music in their choices - quite the opposite. For instance, Lira didn't choose a particular contestant because she felt her style was too similar to her own.
The coaches answered questions about their strategies in a Q&A with the press after the screening and each of them were in agreement that they want to find the best singer who's going to win the show for their team no matter what genre they sing.
It's clear that they're very aware of the problems with singing reality shows - how winners disappear afterwards. They said that they're going to do everything they can to ensure this doesn't happen after the show which was cool.
The problem with it is that so few people will have followed the journey of the winner because of the show only being on M-Net which means their task is going to be so much more difficult. Also, it's airing at a ridiculous time - the exact same time as Clash of the Choirs on Mzansi Magic (17h30) which means viewers are being forced to divide their attention, votes and social media convos.
Both M-Net and Mzansi Magic are so over-obsessed with Sunday nights because of the success they've achieved on Sundays that they aren't looking to week nights for hits which means they've missed a trick with The Voice which holds it back from realising it's potential.
They should have shaken things up by putting it on a Tuesday or Wednesday night at 19h00 and it should have aired on both M-Net and Mzansi Magic. Alternatively they should have waited and aired it on both channels on Sundays after Clash ends.
All of this is a pity because of the great singers, authenticity and production values, just not enough people will get to see what is clearly a very good production.