The Voice here to be produced by mm2, StarHub, Astro

SINGAPORE — Production company mm2 Entertainment announced on Thursday (March 30) that The Voice in Singapore and Malaysia will be co-produced by Singapore companies mm2, StarHub, and Malysia’s Astro.

The production team has started looking for judges, an mm2 spokesman told TODAY.

“They are not ruling out Singapore judges,” he said. But the team is casting its net wide, and are looking at “a pool of talent from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong”, including Singapore and Malaysia, he said.

The contestants will include Singaporeans and Malaysians, but currently, the team has not shut the door to those around the region, either, said the spokesman, who added that details will be released at a later date.

The Voice, originally an American show featuring judges such as Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and country singer Blake Shelton, now has iterations across the globe in countries from Britain to Albania. The American version first aired in 2012.

Today, the franchise, a rival to other reality singing shows such as The X Factor, attracts more than 500 million viewers worldwide.

The Voice and The Voice Kids have close to 8 billion YouTube views and over 12 million subscribers worldwide, according to a press statement from mm2.

mm2 Entertainment, famous for producing movie content (it is the company behind the Ah Boys to Men movies), sees the production of the format for Singapore and Malaysia as an exciting prospect.

“There’s a strong cultural and historical link between Singapore and Malaysia, and there have been a constant stream of creative collaborations between the two territories, including movies, over the years,” said Ng Say Yong, chief content officer at mm2 Asia. “We see this co-production as an extension of that positive relationship and a joint effort to uncover new talent and groom them for the North Asian markets including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. With the active involvement of StarHub and Astro as co-producers, the Singapore and Malaysia version of The Voice will be able to reach out to mass audiences across the two territories.”

The tie-up with Astro, a leading digital media group in Malaysia and South-east Asia, means that an extensive viewership.

“In Malaysia, 20.5 million individuals, or seven in 10 homes enjoy ... content with Astro on any screen, on the go and on demand, be it TV or mobile devices,” noted Wong Siah Ping, vice president of Chinese customer business, Astro.

The Singapore and Malaysia version of The Voice will be broadcast here on StarHub on its FreeView channel, Hub E City (StarHub TV Channel 111/825), which is complimentary to all StarHub TV customers.

The Voice is scheduled for release later this year.