Sir Tom Jones has called the BBC’s decision to sack him as a judge on The Voice a mistake, adding that it was “their loss”, and that he had been happy to witness the ratings decline after his departure.
The show, which was poached in 2015 by ITV for an estimated £50m, has reinstated Jones on the judging panel, and the singer said it was “great to be back. I’m glad it’s on ITV.”
The talent contest will make its debut on ITV on Saturday night, with two new judges, the Oscar and Bafta-winning singer Jennifer Hudson and singer Gavin Rossdale, as well as will.i.am who moved with the show from the BBC.
“Whoever was responsible made a mistake,” said Jones of the decision to replace him with Boy George with only a night’s notice.
“There’s something right there that I can prove to these young singers on the show; that even I got a knockback after all that time. But you’ve got to think to yourself: ‘Well, it’s their loss.’
“The last series, that I wasn’t a part of, the ratings went down so that made me very happy. It’s great to be back and be on ITV. I’m glad it’s on ITV.”
Jones’s criticism follows his outspoken comments this week about being treated better working on a building site than he had by the creators of The Voice and the BBC.
“‘I was pissed off,’ he told the Radio Times. “I never got to the bottom of who made the decision. It was between the production company, Wall to Wall, and the BBC, and I still don’t know why.
“When we got the call, we said, ‘When did you make this decision?’ ‘Yesterday. And we’re going to give it to the press tomorrow.’ Oh, that’s nice. Well of course that’s a kick in the bollocks. When I used to work in factories or on a building site, you’d get a week’s notice at least.”
Despite the transition to ITV and the inclusion of two new judges, the format of the show has remained almost identical, with blind auditions and the judges sitting in red chairs. However, one new twist means the judges can see the contestants only if they press the button; if no coach turns around then the singers walk off stage with no feedback. The change was given the seal of approval by Jones, who said he used to feel “awful” facing rejected contestants.
“If you don’t press your button and then you’ve got to explain to the person why, in the past I’ve thought, ‘What do I say to this person? How can I give advice that I didn’t turn for?’ So when I was told this was going to happen this year, I put myself in the contestant’s place and I thought if I stood there and nobody turned for me, I would want to get out of there. That’s what we used to do and I felt awful.”
will.i.am also addressed the fact that, unlike The X Factor with Leona Lewis and Britain’s Got Talent with Susan Boyle, the UK show has failed over six seasons to make a successful artist out of its winners. He said he hoped switching the record label from Universal to Polydor would make an impact.
“It’s all about song choice and I think that’s the real reason we haven’t seen a superstar from the show, because the songs they end up singing are like ‘whatever’,” he said. “The mellow songs are bad and the hyper songs are bad and that’s one of the reasons I feel Polydor in the mix is going to help change that. Getting new songs for the artist is important.”
Hudson rose to fame on a talent show, having been a finalist on the third season of American Idol, and said she enjoyed being on the other side of the judging table.
“I’m really enjoying being on the other side,” she said. “It’s so fresh in my mind when I was a contestant trying to get there. I already lived that moment and when I’m here, it sends me right back.”
