'The Voice' Reveals There Is No Record Deal This Year

In a game-changer for the reality singing competition genre, the winner of this year’s season of The Voice Australia won’t receive a record deal at the end of the competition.

Unshackling artists still finding their identities from the pressures of a record deal, this year’s winner will instead receive an artist development package with the recording studio Studios 301 in Alexandria.

The winner will still take home the $100,000 cash prize, but the show’s longtime partnership with Universal Music Australia – for 12 years, the winner of The Voice has signed a contract with the label – seems to have ended.

Could the move signify the music industry’s decoupling from reality TV, or has TikTok given a show like The Voice – and the music industry at large – a new false idol?

“In the past, some of these artists have ended up locked into contracts with major labels before they’ve even really figured out who they are as artists,” Kate Miller-Heidke, one of the new coaches on this year’s season of The Voice, said in a recent interview with TV Tonight.

She explained, “You do need time as an artist to be able to hone your craft. I think the risk, when you’re so young or inexperienced, to go out there and be shackled to a major label right off the bat is too early. We need to give these artists a chance to play lots of shows, to figure out what they want to say as an artist.

“I think that’s why this year, the prize is awesome. I mean, it would have been my total wet dream as a young artist to be given this prize from Studios 301, which is just an incredible studio.”

Responding to a question about the “burden” of the winner needing to recoup the investment of their record deal, Miller-Heidke noted that the new prize removes pressure “to make a certain kind of music, pressure to make a covers record. This way, it’s completely up to the artist… I mean, it’s what I would prefer.”

The Voice will return to our screens on Monday, 19 August, on Channel 7 and 7plus.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Miller-Heidke had joined the panel as a coach alongside fellow new coaches, international stars Adam Lambert and LeAnn Rimes. They accompany the returning Guy Sebastian and host Sonia Kruger.