As the ratings-challenged BBC talent series The Voice splutters to its second season final tomorrow night, I hear there is bad news looming for last year’s champion, Leanne Mitchell (right).
I am told that her Universal label, Decca Records, is preparing to drop her after her first three singles were embarrassing flops and she sold fewer than 1,000 copies of her first album, entering the chart at a lowly number 134.‘She may have won the first series of The Voice, but sadly it’s now abundantly clear she has no future as a successful recording artist,’ a Universal insider tells me.
The timing of the news could not be worse for The Voice producers, who are desperate to prove that the show can still create a music superstar, despite overwhelming proof to the contrary.Show staff are desperate for Northern Irish vocalist Leah McFall, who is being mentored by American rapper will.i.am, to win the show this year because they believe she has the best chance of launching a credible music career.
Meanwhile, the quartet of highly paid coaches on The Voice — Sir Tom Jones, Jessie J, will.i.am and Danny O’Donoghue — are set to issue producers with an ultimatum.I’m told they will demand that all four of them are re-employed for next year’s third series or they will quit en masse.This puts executives in a difficult position. There is growing feeling that the show’s personnel needs a change in order to increase ratings, which have slumped to fewer than five million in recent weeks from a peak of eight million.
But Sir Tom has insisted: ‘The four of us make a great team — one without the other wouldn’t work.’But my Voice source says: ‘The producers know the show needs a real shake-up.‘Jessie is incredibly unpopular with viewers and Tom looks bored the majority of the time. Something has to change.’Returning X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne has made it clear her £1.5 million comeback to the ITV talent show will be short lived.
The controversial wife of rock star Ozzy agreed to return for the tenth series of the show, on which she was one of the original judges alongside Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh.However, sources close to the 60-year-old insist she has warned show bosses it will only be for one series.A friend explains: ‘Sharon’s life is in Los Angeles and she hasn’t been prepared to give up her full-time job as a panellist on chat show The Talk for The X Factor. Her American network CBS agreed to let her balance both for the next few months, but there’s an understanding it will only be for this year.
‘She felt it was appropriate for her to return for the tenth anniversary and she needed the money, but long-term The X Factor isn’t part of her plans. She wants to go in this year, stir things up, cause a lot of trouble and swan off in a blaze of glory.’ – DailyMail
