Sony taking Talpa’s The Voice into Italy

Sony Pictures Television’s Italian prodcution arm along with Talpa have inked a deal for hit format The Voice with Italian public broadcaster RAI, TBI has learned.

SPT’s Italian production arm Toro will make the show for RAI, marking the first time the show has been seen in Italy.

A thirteen-episode series will debut next year and the auditions and live show will be filmed in Milan.

The singing competition was created by John de Mol’s Talpa and local versions have now been made in over fifty countries. It is on air in over 150 countries with finals in Brazil, Mexico, the Netherlands and Germany being broadcast last weekend.

SPT’s Italian version follows the huge success it had making a local version of the show across the Middle East and North Africa region.

The first season of The Voice Arabia has just wrapped and delivered weekly viewers in excess of 100 million for pan-regional broadcaster MBC.

In that version of the show auditions were conducted across the Middle East and it was the first mulit-national version of the format. The winner was Moroccan candidate, Murad Boureiky, with runners up from Iraq, Tunisia and Morocco.