Reuben De Melo wins The Voice 2024
Perth-based FIFO worker takes out the $100k prize after impressing with his soulful vocals.
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Perth-based soul singer Reuben De Melo has won The Voice 2024.
The 32-year-old FIFO worker takes out the $100,000 prize and a recording development package from Studios 301 -for the first time there was no recording contract with Universal Music.
Coached by LeeAnn Rimes, Reuben took out the prize over fellow grand finalists Annie Jones (Team Adam), Jaedyn Randell (Team Kate) and Skye (Team Guy).
“I never thought I’d get this far, this is crazy,” he said.
Coach LeAnn Rimes said: “I’m so proud. You deserve every bit of this moment and I’m so honoured that I could be on this journey with you. You are incredible.”
Reuben featured in the very first network promo this year, singing Ed Sheeran’s I See Fire and won a 4 chair coach turn (Guy Sebastian was first to turn) -but it was LeAnn who blocked all 3.
“I knew as soon as he opened his mouth, and I heard him sing. There was just so much feeling there. There was no way I was letting any of the other coaches get to him before I did.”
Voting for the finale closed just before 9pm AEDT with the show already having recorded multiple endings, but it was Reuben’s which went to air based on public voting. Produced by ITV Studio Australia the series has again drawn strong ratings for Seven, especially during its Blind Audition stage.
In 2020 after Seven swooped on the format rights, it was Nine which said, ““Unfortunately, due to the age of the show and its declining demographic profile, The Voice had become by far the poorest financial performer on our slate. We wish Seven well in their quest to revive yet another Nine show.”
Casting has already opened for Season 14 in 2025.
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11 Responses
I watched the UK finale of The Voice a few hours before this one, and I have to give credit where it’s due, at least we allow the country to vote. The UK did their Voice in 9 episodes – 6 Battles, 1 Call back (They cut 10 people down to 3), 1 semi (They cut 3 people down to 1) and 1 Finale where the audience (full of supporters for each of the finalists) voted for the winner. Ironically last week both editions of the Voice featured the same Joni Mitchell song as well. However, surely in 2024-2025, we can afford to put a little more time in with the contestants or at the very least acknowledge it for what it is. Instead of having the coaches blab on about “working with them” when it’s just one session etc, how about we go back to calling it “The X Factor” bring the live shows and actual workable critiques for the singers to utilise so the “superstar coaches” can return to their lives guilt free and we get the return of live programs on Channel 7 again. To dream the impossible dream…
Off to Eurovision in May??
Fun to reflect on that quote from Nine. They are having the last laugh though, with The Block being the regular ratings winner.
I dunno. I reckon Seven is pretty happy with good ratings for four seasons (including killer ratings in 2021). Nine was implying the show had reached end of its life and you can bet Seven are not paying close to $40m having cut excess episodes.
David, do you know if any of these competition shows still do actual live finales? It was pretty obvious from watching the end of The Voice last night that they had recorded it some time ago and shot four different “winner” announcements, and just aired the one that matched the viewer vote on the night. I get why they do that, but it really impacts the authenticity of a winner’s reaction.
Australian Idol finale was live.
The question is will anyone know him in 5 years time?
Years? Try days!
Counterpoint – for a website like this, the question is did it rate. 1 million. Still didn’t defeat the block but seven seem satisfied given they are inviting applications for next year.
The right singer won this year ! When he sang House of The Rising Sun it just confirmed how good he is. Hopefully he is able to make a living with his wonderful talent. Having said that all 4 contestants were great.
I enjoyed this season and a wide range of singers for the final. All put in good performances but Rueben really did have a distinctive sound and didn’t put in a weak performance at any stage of the contest. And to preempt comments about how almost none of the winners amount to anything, I don’t care (and suspect seven doesn’t either) – it was enjoyable viewing and from sevens perspective, does well enough to ensure they win the week which may not be everything, but isn’t nothing either.