BEHIND THE WITHCARSON DALY SCENES

Insights and season highlights from the warm and calming presence who holds the whole show together

Stop comparing us to American Idol! “Your measuring stick is antiquated because of the way that technology has proliferated,” Daly says, explaining why the days of discovering a Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson on a TV show are gone. “For instance, I could never do TRL [his Total Request Live show] again because this generation has the internet and doesn’t need MTV to get music. There are a lot of YouTubers, and my kids listen to music of people that you have never heard of, that I have never heard of. For some people, just getting to a place where they can support themselves making music, thanks to The Voice— that’s winning.”

My favorite part of the job is hanging with artists’ families.

“I take the responsibility of being not just the host of the show,

LÕÌ Li } > ÃÌ Ì Ì iÃi v> iÃ Ü ½Ûi y Ü vÀ all over the country,” he says. “I want them to have a good experience on the show even when we’re not on camera. You see me, I jump up and down > ` } wÛi > ` Õ} Ü i à i i gets a chair to turn, or I’m there if it doesn’t work out. I really, really respect and cherish my time with the families.”

We chose to make feel-good TV. When Mark Burnett developed The Voice in 2011, he wanted it to be a family entertainment show to counteract programming on the air that was polarizing and negative, Daly says. “Idol would make fun of people who couldn’t sing, for instance. As producers, we were always like, ‘Let’s not judge people. Let’s support people.’ I think America enjoyed that and the mentorship factor of our show.”

Families guess wrong about coach choices. “A mom will look at me and go, ‘She’s going to pick Blake, for sure, she’s going to pick Blake,’ and all of a sudden she’ll pick Nick Jonas. I’ve seen it happen where the families are then stunned. When those artists are out there in that moment, chairs have turned, and pitches made, artists think they know what they’re going to do, but when they’re actually out there, they’re won over by somebody’s passion and pitch. Adam used to be the king of that. Adam does not like to lose.”

He cherishes the meaningful moments. On the

Dec. 17, 2012, episode of The Voice, the show opened with Daly, Shelton, Levine, Green,

Aguilera and the artists singing Leonard

Cohen‘s “Hallelujah” in a tribute to the 26 children and adults who died at Sandy Hook

Elementary School. “That was one of the more powerful moments of the last 19 seasons,” Daly says. “I ended up meeting the parents of the kindergartner, whose name I was holding, on Today on an anniversary show for Sandy Hook. I couldn’t believe it. I went back in my photos and grabbed the photo of me onstage on The Voice years prior and sent it to the mother. She was like, ‘Wow, that’s really crazy.’”