The Voice (U.S. season 10)

Coaches and hosts

Adam Levine and Blake Shelton will be returning for their tenth season as coaches. Pharrell Williams is to return for his fourth season and Christina Aguilera is to return for her sixth season, after a season's hiatus. The advisors for this season include next season's coach Miley Cyrus, who will serve as an advisor for all teams during the knockouts.

Auditions

The open call auditions were held in the following locations.

Teams

Blind auditions

Episode 5 (March 9)

This episode covered the Best of the Blind Auditions and a sneak peek of the next stage of competition, the Battle Rounds.

Episode 6 (March 14)

The sixth episode included the last of the Blind Auditions as well as the first Battles. All of the coaches performed "I Wish".

The Battles

The Battles (from the second half of episode 6 to episode 9) consisted of two 2-hour episodes, one 1-hour and one special episodes each on March 14, 15, 21 and 22, 2016. Season ten's advisors included: Tori Kelly for Team Adam, Sean 'Diddy' Combs for Team Pharrell, Patti LaBelle for Team Christina and Gwen Stefani for Team Blake. The coaches can steal two losing artists from another coach. Contestants who won their battle or are stolen by another coach will advance to the Knockout rounds.

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The Knockouts

For the knockouts, Miley Cyrus was assigned as a mentor for contestants in all four teams. The coaches can each steal one losing artist. The top 20 contestants will then move on to the "Live Shows."

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₁ Daniel Passino is on Team Pharrell for the Live Shows
₂ Nick Hagelin is on Team Christina for the Live Shows

Live shows

The Live Shows are the final phase of the competition. It consists of the playoffs, five weekly shows and the season finale.

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Week 1: Live Playoffs (April 11, 12 and 13)

The Live Playoffs comprised episodes 14, 15, and 16. The top twenty artists perform, with two artists from each team advancing based on the viewers' vote, and each coach completing their respective teams with their own choice. Just like from Season 9, each coach brought back one eliminated artist of their choice to join the top 20 and compete in the Live Playoffs. The Monday night broadcast featured Teams Blake and Christina, the Tuesday night broadcast featured Teams Adam and Pharrell, and the Wednesday night broadcast featured the results.

Week 2: Top 12 (April 18 and 19)

The two artists with the fewest votes compete for an Instant Save, with one leaving the competition each week until the semifinals. iTunes bonus multipliers were awarded to Adam Wakefield (#7) and Alisan Porter (#9).

Week 3: Top 11 (April 25 and 26)

None of the artists reached the top 10 on iTunes, so no bonuses were awarded. The least vote for an Instant Save will be eliminated.

Week 4: Top 10 (May 2 and 3)

iTunes bonus multiplier was awarded to Alisan Porter (#6). The least vote from the Instant Save will be eliminated.

Week 5: Top 9 (May 9 and 10)

iTunes bonus multipliers were awarded to Adam Wakefield (#9) and Laith Al-Saadi (#10). This week's Instant Save was the second closest in the show's history, with Paxton and Nick tied for most of the voting window. Paxton was saved with a difference of nearly 100 votes.

Week 6: Semifinals (May 16 and May 17)

This week, the three artists with the most votes made it straight to the finals, the two artists with the least votes were instantly eliminated and the middle three fought for the remaining spot in the finals via Instant Save. iTunes bonus multipliers were awarded to Adam Wakefield (#2), Alisan Porter (#3), Hannah Huston (#5), Mary Sarah (#6), Bryan Bautista (#7) and Laith Al-Saadi (#10). In addition to their individual songs, each artist performed a duet with another artist in the competition, though these duets were not available for purchase on iTunes. All four coaches had an artist advance to the finals for the first time since season 2 and season 1, which was team-based rather than individual, thus making season 10 the first in The Voice history to achieve this feat organically.

Week 7: Finals (May 23 and May 24)

The Top 4 performed on Monday, May 23, 2016, with the final results following on Tuesday, May 24, 2016. This week, the four finalists performed a solo song, a duet with their coach, and an original song. In a change from the previous seasons, iTunes bonus multipliers were extended to songs performed in the final performance show. iTunes bonus multipliers were awarded to Adam Wakefield (#1 and #9), Hannah Huston (#3 and #7), Alisan Porter (#4 and #5) and Laith Al-Saadi (#6). All iTunes votes received for the six weeks leading up to the finale were cumulatively added to online and app finale votes for each finalist.

Overall

Team

Controversy and criticism

The show faced controversy when Katherine Ho, a contestant on Team Adam, was the second contestant in the history of the show to make it to the third round of the competition and have all of her performances, including her Blind Audition, Battle, and Knockout round, montaged (not shown in full).

According to Matt Carter, "It’s not often that we write an article on 'The Voice' that is about a contestant being triple-montaged, mostly because it is such a rare phenomenon, but here we are with it happening to Katherine Ho. When it a triple-montage does happen, it just makes it all the more frustrating since it eliminates the purpose of the show. We know that there is no guarantee that you are going to get airtime when you audition for the show, but we do think for the most part you should get a little more attention than Katherine Ho got over the course of the competition. Her Battle Round performance of Caroline Burns was not really shown, and this puts her in a similar camp with Rebekah Samarin back in season 7 of the show. They made it far enough on the show that they cannot audition again, and yet they don’t really get a lot of publicity – it’s pretty unfair.

Here’s the most egregious thing about this performance tonight: We don’t even know what Katherine sang! She just didn’t get any attention at all."

Contestants who appeared on previous shows or seasons