The Voice Of Ireland

The Voice of Ireland is the talent competition that begins where others end, thousands hopefuls submitted an online audition and tonight they find themselves singing in front of four coaches Kian Egan, Sharon Corr, Bressie and Brian Kennedy.except the coaches can't see them, they can only hear them! The blind auditions kick off with hopefuls vying for a place on one of the coaches' teams. The coaches will go head to head for their favourites, there will be attitude, tears, big voices and a few familiar faces to watch out for! And the prize? A recording contract with Universal Music!

Hosted by Kathryn Thomas and Eoghan McDermott, The Voice of Ireland will consist of three phases: five blind audition shows followed by three singing battle rounds before the live performance shows begin on the 4th of March.

In the blind audition rounds Sharon, Bressie, Kian and Brian compete with each other to choose teams of contestants through a blind audition process. During these auditions the mentors are seated with their backs to the singers, and their decisions are based solely on the contestant's voice. If a coach is impressed by the voice, they push the 'I Want You' button and their chair turns to face the singer. If more than one coach pushes the button, the power shifts to the singer and they get to decide which coach they want to work with.

Once each coach has their team in place, the battle is on! Each team of singers will be mentored and developed by their coach. In the singing battle stage, each of the coaches will have two members of their team battle against each other by singing the same song, with the coach deciding which team member will advance to the live shows.

In the final stage the series will go live for nine weeks starting from on the 4th of March and the contestants will compete to hold onto their place in the show. The live shows promise to be an un-missable weekly entertainment event that will feature not only the contestants, but performances from the coaches and special musical guests. The television audience will help to decide who stays until one team member remains for each coach, where the contestants will compete against each other in the final. In the end, only one will be crowned The Voice of Ireland and go on to win a recording contract with Universal Music.

The viewer at home will have an interactive role with the coaches, contestants and hosts through social networking mediums Facebook and Twitter. On top of this, The Voice of Ireland website will feature exclusive videos to give viewers an ongoing look behind the scenes, courtesy of The V Reporter - Claire Solan.

Promising to be the most exciting show of the New Year, The Voice begins will run for 17 weeks on RTÉ One at 6:30pm from January 9th