Posted:
It's no secret that SRGMP has had a flawed format since the day Shaan walked out and announced public voting. In the years that followed, we've managed to lose many talented singers, and we've given the titles to singers who aren't even that good (Debojit, Aneek, Jasraj, and in particular, Kushal).
Here's what I would do to fix that. And just to make it more interesting, let's say this new format is implemented for the first time in 2020. Introducing -- Challenge 2020: A new format for a new decade.
Auditions are conducted by sending in recordings, which are then reviewed by our dear producers and directors. Let's say 50 contestants are selected -- 25 boys, 25 girls.
In the first phase of the competition, the 50 contestants are all divided into 5 groups of 10, 5 boys, 5 girls. There would be 5 gharanas -- I'd go for Jatin Pandit, Shankar Mahadevan, A.R. Rahman, Javed Ali, and Shiv-Hari.
In the second phase, we use public voting to bring the number of contestants down to 10. This would be done through the same system used in C05, the green cards, yellow cards, red cards, etc. No blue card chakravyuh bull-you-know-what.
In the top 10 phase, this is where a panel of judges from the musical industry should come into focus. The producers need to give the grand jury a good solid briefing as to criteria -- sur, taal, etc. From here, we move to what is used currently, the grand jury score helps the mentors decide who is eliminated.
Now, before we bring up the threat of regional voting (Debojit winning because of Assam, Aneek winning because of Bengal, etc.) here's what I'd propose to minimize this threat -- a weightage system for overall score.
Public voting is worth 10% of the score, studio voting is 5%. The studio musicians/orchestra also get to vote, and it's worth 10%, the mentor votes are 15%, and the grand jury votes are 60%.
I'd love to hear your thoughts!
