The Voice is a reality talent show. The series is part of the franchise The Voice and is based on a similar competition format in the Netherlands, The Voice of Holland. The show is hosted by Carson Daly, with Alison Haislip serving as the backstage and social networking correspondent, and the coaches, all well-known musicians, were Christina Aguilera, CeeLo Green, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine and Blake Shelton. The inaugural season premiered April 26, 2011 and ended on June 29, 2011 on the live finale. Javier Colon was announced as the winner of the inaugural season, marking Levine's first win as a coach. Overview The series consists of three phases: a blind audition, a battle phase and a four-week live performance shows. Four coaches each choose teams of (eight) contestants through a blind audition process. Each coach has the length of the auditioner's performance (about one minute) to decide if he or she wants that singer on his or her team; if two or more coaches want the same singer (as happened with all but one singer in the premiere episode), the artist is given an option to choose their coach. These artists will be mentored by the selected coach throughout the entire season, then compete in battle rounds followed by live performance shows and eliminations are done team-based until each coach had one artist remaining. When one remains for each coach, the four contestants compete against each other in the finale, with the winning artist receives $100,000 and a record deal with Universal Republic Records The season's advisors for Green, Levine, Aguilera and Shelton were respectively Sia, Monica, music producer Adam Blackstone and Reba McEntire. Auditions Contestant auditions were held in eight cities across the United States between mid-January and mid-February 2011: Chicago, New York, Miami, Nashville, Minneapolis, Austin, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Contestants were also allowed to submit an online applications, which ended on March 1, 2011. For the online auditions, contestants were required to sing one of ten preselected songs. Contestants on The Voice as revealed by airing of promotional advertisements or shows were Javier Colon, Frenchie Davis, Nakia, Lukas Rossi, Cherie Oakley, and Dia Frampton. Coaches, host, and social media correspondent In late February 2011, NBC began announcements of the coaches for the series. First to sign on were CeeLo Green and Adam Levine (frontman for Maroon 5). Christina Aguilera came on board in early March