How much time is actually spent performing songs on The Voice?

FOR a show about singing, the The Voice blind auditions have had a lot of drama and backstories on high rotation — and not much voice.

IN a season that promised to turn up the volume on the drama, The Voice Australia has already dialled up the decibels.

As the show spins out of its audition phase and into knockout rounds this Sunday night, the memorable moments haven’t been confined to jaw-dropping performances on what was billed as its “most dramatic season of all time”.

Fans have revelled in coach clashes and sledges — usually Boy George versus the rest of the world as the man in the hat took no prisoners in his pursuit of big talent — and random acts of coach kindness and encouragement, even for those who didn’t make it through.

There have been heart-rending backstories, and spirited debate — not least over uber-talented Sam Perry — whose vocal loop gymnastics divided opinion on whether technology-assisted wizardry had a place on a show called The Voice.

But amid the recaps, the padding and the other background noise, how much time has been spent actually singing?

Crunch the numbers, and it’s less than you’d expect.

Controversial: Sam Perry’s vocal loop wizardry left some wondering had The Voice lost its focus on voice. Picture: Channel 9

Watching the blind audition shows might require an investment of about 90 minutes for each episode, but in that time viewers hear an average of just 12 and a half minutes of contestants actually singing.

Yep — singers belting out tunes make up only about 14 per cent of the time it takes to watch the show as it airs.

Across ten blind audition shows this year, The Voice has featured 70 contestant performances to notch up a total singing time of about two hours.

Throw in coach performances and you can add about ten minutes total.

Episodes one and eight featured the least singers — understandably there was time to show only six wannabe stars to make time for the real stars of the show: the coaches.

Episode one featured a total of just over ten minutes of singing time from contestants, but opened with a rousing rendition of Heroes from Boy George, Kelly Rowland, Delta Goodrem and Joe Jonas.

Sweeeeet: Lacey Madison earns her spot on Team Kelly. Picture: Channel 9

Episode eight also had six contestants get just over ten minutes of performance time aired, but also a performance by coach “sisters” Goodrem and Rowland doin’ it for themselves.

The last of the blind auditions this week had the most time given over to actual contestants singing — almost a quarter of an hour of the show.

Eight contestants spent a total of 14 minutes and 23 seconds belting out tunes in a bid to win the final spots on coach teams.

If you’re feeling a little dudded, viewers have only themselves to blame: everyone loves a backstory from a battler or a battle bordering on bitchy.

And over on Seven, reality show My Kitchen Rules has certainly made no bones about the fact this year that it has served up more controversy than cooking — and viewers have eaten it up.

Sonya and Hadil were eventually booted from the cooking competition — but not before Seven had feasted on the scandal in a blaze of promotion, publicity, and ratings.

Originally published as How much time is actually spent performing songs on The Voice?