A new singing competition show, Boy Band, will soon be here to fill the void American Idol left in our hearts.
ABC has ordered 10 episodes of the new reality show, which will premiere this summer, Deadline reports. And like many other reality show competitions, the audience will have a say in the results.
As with American Idol, viewers can vote for their favorite singers. The catch, though, is that the five winners will become members of a real boy band. And that group will have a Hollywood Records recording contract.
While singing competitions are nothing new, the fact that Boy Band is so open about its premise is interesting. One Direction, for example, formed on the British series The X Factor, but its members originally auditioned for the show as solo artists. And O-Town was formed on the 2000 MTV series Making the Band. Plus, there was the WB's Popstars, where a pre-Pussycat Dolls Nicole Scherzinger performed Whitney Houston and went on to win a spot in the girl group Eden's Crush.
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But with Boy Band, the singers know what they're getting into — and that if they win, they'll be thrust into a group with four people who are, essentially, complete strangers.
As Deadline points out, ABC has recently invested in other singing-based TV shows that turned out to be flops. 2012's Duets, which boasted the star power of John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Nettles, and Robin Thicke, was canceled after a single season. The same was true of 2014's Rising Star. But maybe Boy Band will be the show to turn the network's singing investments around.
Judges for the show haven't been announced yet, but according to Variety's sources, the panel will likely include current or former boy and girl-band members. Could Boy Band bring us the next 1D? Only time will tell.