Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Carson Daly with Kelly Clarkson and Gwen Stefani on The Voice Season 17. (NBC Photo)

For those who missed the news, The Voice has been nominated for a 2020 Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition.

And let me be clear on this: The Voice should not win.

What’s more, the very fact that The Voice is nominated — and American Idol is not — should bring into question the worthiness and legitimacy of the Emmys.

In the past three seasons, Voice executive producer Mark Burnett and his team have aired two of the worst singing show seasons in the history of singing shows.

Season 16, with cross battles and an abbreviated finals that lasted just three weeks, was a format tortured mess.

Season 18, unbelievably, was worse. The show went from a Top 17 to a winner in three weeks. Eventual champ Todd Tilghman had to sing just five times to make the finals.

For the first time ever, coaches hand-picked semifinalists. And producers showed further disdain for voters’ preference by requiring that every coach be represented in the finale, regardless of which singers received the most votes from fans.

The pandemic didn’t help matters, of course. The “live” rounds were virtual, with performers singing from their homes and the coaches providing feedback from theirs.

But — and this is important — the mad dash from a Top 17 to a winner, a dash that provided no time for an underdog to gain momentum, a dash that pretty much ensured Season 18 would be nothing but a popularity contest — was planned before the pandemic affected anything.

American Idol, meanwhile, planned a full slate of live shows, had to pull back because of the pandemic, and still managed to offer viewers more opportunities to participate.

And while the talent level on The Voice has remained excellent, in my opinion, American Idol assembled a younger cast with more record label appeal.

Yet American Idol received no Emmy nods. The other Emmy nominations went to “Nailed It!” from Netflix,
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” from VH1, “The Masked Singer” from FOX, and “Top Chef” from Bravo.

Hopefully, one of those will win when the Emmy is announced Sept. 20.

The Voice simply isn’t deserving.