NBC Joining Singing Competition Fray With ‘Voice of America’

NBC is launching a new singing competition series titled “The Voice of America” to compete with FOX’s “American Idol” and “The X Factor,” Deadline.com’s Live Feed blog reported Monday.

The show is based on the Dutch series “The Voice of Holland,” which debuted earlier this year in the Netherlands. John de Mol, creator of “The Voice of Holland,” will serve as a producer on the US version, along with “Survivor” producer Mark Burnett.

NBC plans to debut “The Voice of America” in Spring 2011, to get a jump on the fall launch of the US version of “The X Factor” and possibly compete with “American Idol.” Paul Telegedy, the network’s alternative programming chief, called the production schedule “a bold move” that “shows our confidence.”

Telegedy said NBC has been planning to move into the singing-competition for several months.“The Voice of America” will feature a panel of four established performers as “coaches,” rather than judges, who can claim contestants they like as students, mentor them, and then pit their teams of students against one another. Coaches will initially hear contestants sing with their backs turned, so they will be judges strictly on their voices.