It’s finally happening. It’s that thing we’ve all been waiting for and we can’t believe it’s finally happening. We honestly never thought this moment would arrive, but in retrospect we should’ve given the Australian public more credit.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the finale of the latest season of The Voice saw the worst ratings in the show’s history. Yes, on the evening the show’s ratings should be at their highest, they suffered a major drop on last year’s.

Just 1.15 million metro viewers tuned in for the grand final of the 2016 season of The Voice, down from 1.5 million just 12 months ago, indicating a 23 percent drop in viewers, which must have producers questioning the future of the program.

Even the show’s tired tactic of separating the grand final from the actual winner announcement generated just a minor improvement in the ratings. Only 1.29 million viewers across five mainland capital cities tuned in, down from 1.59 million last year.

But even that figure is down from previous years. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, when the reality singing competition first premiered in 2012, it averaged 2.43 million viewers per episode with 2.75 million tuning in for the grand final and 3.24 million for the winner announce.

Fairfax speculates that viewers are simply tuning out because of the abundance of alternative entertainment options, but we have a feeling that people may be realising that shows such as The Voice are just a promotional front for its celebrity judges.

The shows do little for the careers of its contestants or even the winners, each of whom has struggled to actually launch a career in the Australian music industry and forget about conquering any overseas markets. It’s not really on the agenda.

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Even coaches on The Voice, such as OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, have criticised the show’s narrow focus on simply finding someone with good vocal chops instead of finding a fully formed artist with a unique personality and image who can write songs.

“I have heard (OneRepublic’s hit) ‘Counting Stars’ covered 30 times on these shows and Adele’s ‘Turning Tables’ and they can sound great covering those songs but they don’t live it,” he said.

Indeed, the winner’s song by Alfie Arcuri, entitled ‘Cruel’, has allegedly been described by local industry brass as “a fucking disaster”. Noise11 reports the single has struggled to stay in the iTunes Top 40 in the 24 hours after being released.

Industry figures suggest ‘Cruel’ has sold around 300 units at best. “The guy has a very good voice but the song is totally wrong for the winner,” one industry executive reportedly told Noise11. “He can sing. The song didn’t give him credit to his voice. It was too cool. It was overly produced. It just wasn’t good.”

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