Gwen Stefani re-joins The Voice for season 17

News broke that Adam Levine is leaving The Voice after 16 seasons and Gwen Stefani will be taking his place for Season 17.  According to Taste Of Country, Levine decided to leave the show because of the new rules and format that doesn’t guarantee each judge taking a contestant to the semi-finals or finals.

New episodes of season 17 of The Voice will return to NBC this fall on September 23, 2019, and will air at 8 p.m. on Monday and Tuesdays.  Kelly Clarkson and John Legend will be joining Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton as judges.

The Voice is an international reality television singing competition franchise. It is based on the reality singing competition The Voice of Holland, which was originally created by Dutch television producer John de Mol. Many other countries have adapted the format and begun airing their own versions since 2010. It has become a rival to the Idols franchise, Rising Star, All Together Now franchise, and The X Factor.

John de Mol, creator of Big Brother, first created The Voice concept with Dutch singer Roel van Velzen. Erland Galjaard, a Dutch program director, asked John de Mol about whether he could come up with a format that went a step further than The X Factor. De Mol then came up with the idea of Blind Audition. He wanted to focus on singing quality alone, so the coaches must be top artists in the music industry. The rotating chairs concept was invented by Roel van Velzen. It would also be the first talent show in which social media was actively involved.^[1]

On 17 September 2010, The Voice of Holland began to air on RTL 4 with Angela Groothuizen, Roel van Velzen, Nick & Simon, and Jeroen van der Boom as the mentor-judges (dubbed as “coaches”) of the show.^[2] The show proved to be an instant success in the Netherlands.^[3][4]

The format was later sold to different countries, in many cases replacing a previous Endemol music contest format, Operation Triumph / Star Academy.