They are the four famous faces sitting in television’s most recognisable red chairs.
But as Channel Seven weighs up another season of The Voice Australia, New Idea understands the network is facing a much bigger problem than the salaries commanded by Melanie C, Ronan Keating, Richard Marx and Kate Miller-Heidke.
It’s everything else.
Luxury Sydney accommodation, international flights, cars and drivers, meals, daily expenses and the cost of accommodating partners or additional personnel can turn an already eye-watering talent deal into an even bigger bill.
Insiders say those extras are precisely where Channel Seven needs to find substantial savings.
“If the show comes back, the feeling is that these costs need to be cut dramatically! Potentially by half,” claims a television insider.
“It’s not necessarily about asking everyone to work for half their salary. It’s looking at everything surrounding that salary and asking: Do we really need to spend this much?”
What could a coach really cost?
Exactly what each current coach receives remains confidential. However, New Idea has lifted the lid on what an average coach bills and the additional costs are eye-watering.
International coaches have received accommodation, expenses and return first-class international flights on top of their salaries.
When you begin applying those sorts of expenses to the current line-up, the numbers can become staggering.
New Idea can report international coaches incur an additional $150,000 to $300,000 or more in production-related living and travel costs during a season – before their salary is counted.
It is an estimate rather than a figure from the current coaches’ confidential contracts, but it demonstrates the scale of the problem Seven faces.
Accommodation: $40,000–$60,000 a month
This could be the big one.
Luxury accommodation for international television talent in Sydney can easily run into tens of thousands of dollars every month.
On the 2024 season of The Voice, Adam Lambert was reportedly housed in a Bondi penthouse costing an extraordinary $54,000 a month… which gives you an idea of an official dollar value that gets allocated.
For a coach accommodated at that level for three months, the bill could reach approximately $162,000. Even reducing that to $30,000 a month would still leave production with a $90,000 bill for a three-month stay.
This is where Seven could make enormous savings.
“If somebody has previously had a $50,000-a-month property, the obvious question is whether you can find something for $20,000 or $25,000,” says the insider.
“You could save $75,000 on one coach without touching their actual salary.”
Meals and expenses: $100–$250 a day?
Then come the seemingly small expenses that add up over weeks.
Australian entertainment industry agreements already recognise meals, accommodation and transport as legitimate production expenses when performers are required to travel.
For a superstar television coach, however, New Idea believes a realistic budgeting exercise could allow approximately $100 to $250 per day for meals, incidentals and miscellaneous living expenses when catering isn’t being supplied.
Over 90 days, that’s potentially $9000 to $22,500 per coach.
Add another person whose costs are being covered and that figure can quickly climb.
The important distinction is that this is a budget estimate, not a claim that Melanie C, Ronan, Richard or Kate personally receives that amount as a cash per diem.
Cars and drivers: $1000–$2000 a week?
There’s also the question of getting the stars around Sydney.
Airport transfers, filming, rehearsals, wardrobe, publicity appearances and other production commitments all require transport.
If production provides a dedicated premium vehicle and professional driver throughout filming, New Idea estimates a transport budget could easily run to around $1000 to $2000 a week or more, depending on the number of days and hours a driver is required.
Over a 12-week production period, that potentially means another $12,000 to $24,000 per coach.
Four coaches could therefore conceivably generate a transport bill approaching $50,000 to $100,000.
Again, that’s before anyone is paid for actually appearing on the show.
International travel: The first-class problem
And then there’s getting the international coaches here.
The Voice Australia contracts have reportedly included return first-class international airfares.
For Melanie C and Ronan, that potentially means long-haul travel between Britain and Australia.
For Richard, it’s travel between the United States and Sydney.
Premium international fares fluctuate enormously depending on airline, route and booking date, but multiple long-haul premium tickets can quickly add tens of thousands of dollars to a production budget.
Then comes the biggest question of all: Who else is production paying to fly? Partners? Management? Assistants? Stylists? Other members of a coach’s professional team?
There is no suggestion Seven pays for all those people for its current coaches and their individual contracts remain private.
But every additional international traveller whose costs are covered potentially means another airfare, airport transfer, meal and possibly another bedroom.
That’s how one expense creates three more.
The entourage effect
Richard Marx’s reported Sydney accommodation provides an interesting example.
The US superstar was reportedly housed in a sprawling five-bedroom, five-bathroom Tamarama residence, with reports indicating there was room for wife Daisy Fuentes and members of his team.
That doesn’t mean Seven necessarily paid every expense incurred by everyone staying there.
But it does illustrate why accommodating an international celebrity can require considerably larger and more expensive accommodations than a one-bedroom apartment.
One coach might need one bedroom. A coach travelling with a partner, manager or assistant suddenly needs three. And, if production covers any of those additional costs, the bill grows again.
The possible real cost
So what could the extras conceivably look like for one international coach over approximately three months?
- Luxury Sydney accommodation: $90,000–$160,000
- Meals and daily expenses: $9000–$22,500
- Cars and drivers: $12,000–$24,000
- International premium travel: potentially $10,000–$30,000-plus depending on the route, cabin, number of trips and travellers
- Airport transfers, additional transport and incidentals: potentially thousands more
That produces an illustrative additional bill of roughly $125,000 to $240,000-plus for one international coach and potentially considerably more if multiple people are being accommodated or flown internationally.
Put three international superstars on the panel and Channel Seven could conceivably be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional costs before their salaries are even considered.
And that is why the network’s new numbers suddenly matter.
Cut it in half
New Idea understands Seven’s challenge is to potentially cut the budget allocated to these kinds of costs by as much as 50 per cent if another season is to stack up financially.
A $50,000-a-month property becomes a $25,000 one. Multiple international trips become one carefully scheduled visit. First class could become business class.
Dedicated transport could be shared or restricted to work days. The number of additional people whose travel or accommodation production is prepared to cover could be dramatically tightened. Even daily expenses could be capped.
“Individually, some of these things don’t sound enormous compared with a million-dollar salary,” explains the source.
“But put three international stars into luxury accommodation, start buying international premium airfares and provide transport and expenses for months, and suddenly you’re talking about serious money.”
Kate’s home-ground advantage
That also makes Kate Miller-Heidke particularly interesting when Seven looks at its numbers.
As an Australian artist, she doesn’t bring the same long-haul relocation costs as her international colleagues.
No repeated UK-to-Sydney or US-to-Sydney flights. No need to relocate an international household.
And potentially fewer costs associated with maintaining an overseas star in Australia for months.
It demonstrates why the salary printed beside a coach’s name doesn’t necessarily reveal their real cost to production.
Because for The Voice Australia, the expensive part isn’t always getting a superstar to say yes.
Sometimes it’s everything that comes after they sign the contract.
Note: The $100 to $250 daily-expense estimate is actually quite conservative as an illustrative range: current Australian official high-cost travel benchmarks can reach about $230 per day just for meals and incidentals, while entertainment-industry allowances separately recognise accommodation and travel costs.
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