RTL 4 has made a remarkable decision: the new season of The Voice of Holland has significantly shortened episodes. The program now only lasts 1.5 hours: why?
TV authority Tina Nijkamp has noticed something remarkable about the January schedules of RTL 4: the episodes of the comeback season of The Voice of Holland only last an hour and a half instead of two hours. “The Voice is being shortened. The Voice used to last two hours, including commercials,” she says in her podcast Tina’s TV Update.
An hour and a half
RTL 4 has been working with that broadcasting time for major shows for years. “In fact, many show programs on RTL 4’s Friday evenings last two hours, for example Holland’s Got Talent. That always starts at 8 p.m. and lasts until 10 p.m. The Masked Singer is also from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The Voice does not and that is striking,” says Tina.
She continues: “That was always the case in the past. In fact: The Voice was one of the first programs, perhaps the first on RTL 4 on Fridays, that lasted two hours. Previously, SBS 6 had introduced this with Sterren Dansen op het IJs. That was one of the first programs that lasted two hours.”
‘This is the reason’
It is a trend break, Tina continues. “Idols, for example, used to always last an hour and a half, and now they are going back to the hour and a half for The Voice. Why is that? I have of course thought about that for a while and I think it is because you get less blind auditions need to use in the broadcast.”
She continues: “It saves half an hour of broadcast time, net it also saves 25 to 30 minutes, so that means you can do more blind auditions episodes and that will happen, because there will be no fewer than eight episodes next year.”
Spread
RTL 4 is heavily spreading The Voice, but of course you have to have enough interesting auditions, Tina concludes. “Normally there are six episodes and now eight.”
“I think that was the reason to make those broadcasts shorter, so that you can spread the blind auditions over several episodes, because that of course remains and always has been the most popular part of The Voice.”