Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Adam Levine makes a point as fellow coaches Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson and Blake Shelton look on during The Voice Season 15 knockout round. (NBC Photo)

Important news, Voice fans: The show is switching from iTunes to Apple Music voting for Season 15.

And if you’re a big-time fan of a Season 15 contestant, you might want to consider signing up for the streaming service.

Thanks to The Voice’s Season 15 rule changes, lots and lots of votes are at stake.

Oh, and the show is also shortening its overnight voting window. More on that later.

In past seasons, fans could download iTunes versions of a Voice contestant’s songs and that counted as a vote with a limit of one download per iTunes account.

Any singer landing in the Top 10 on the iTunes Top 200 singles chart when voting ended earned bonus points as well.

In Season 15, iTunes versions of songs performed on the show won’t be available until Top 13 night (Nov. 19).

That’s disappointing in itself since in previous seasons, iTunes versions of songs from the blind auditions, battle round, knockout round and live playoffs were also available.

In recent seasons, streaming the songs on Apple Music also counted as votes, up to 10 per song.

But here’s where the big rule change comes in. This year, the bonus points will only be awarded to one artist per week — the one with the most streams of his or her song on Apple Music during the overnight voting window.

The lucky singer with the most streams gets his or her Apple Music streams multiplied by five for voting purposes. Let’s examine the impact that can have.

Say a contestant has 1,000 fans stream his or her song 10 times and winds up with the most overnight streams. With the multiplier added, the contestant winds up with 50,000 votes.

Say the contestant with the second-most streams has 999 fans stream his or her song 10 times. That singer winds up with 9,990 votes, or 40,001 fewer.

That’s a huge difference that probably wouldn’t be nearly as pronounced in past seasons when multiple contestants often wound up in the Top 10 on iTunes and earning bonus points for doing so.

As for the overnight voting window, it used to run from 8 p.m. performance night until noon the next day. The Voice has now shortened that to 7 a.m. the next day. The same 11-hour voting window will apply to wherever you’re watching the show.

In other words, on the West Coast, the voting window begins at 5 p.m. — yep, three hours before the show airs unless you have an East Coast feed — until 4 a.m.

But, hey, let’s look at the bright side. At least there isn’t any live voting planned for Season 15 except for the Twitter saves at the end of the result shows.

Stay tuned. I’ll be posting more on the other methods for voting and voting for the live playoffs, which air Monday. Again, there will be no Apple Music voting following Monday’s show.

And, remember, the Apple Music streaming doesn’t go into effect until the Top 13 show on Nov. 19. The shortened voting window begins with this week’s show.

See also …
Team Adam Live Playoff predictions
Team Adam social media leaders
Team Blake Live Playoff predictions
Team Blake social media leaders
Team Jennifer Live Playoffs predictions
Team Jennifer social media leaders
Team Kelly Live Playoff predictions
Team Kelly social media leaders