Diana Rouvas wins The Voice Australia amid voting chaos

Sunday night delivered a fairytale ending for Diana Rouvas on The Voice Australia.

The same cannot be said for the reality show’s official website, though. It crashed before voting had ended, leaving many viewers unable to cast their vote.

“Hundreds of thousands of votes have been coming through during tonight’s show which has caused some technical problems for a small number of viewers, however, votes are continuing to flow through,” a Nine spokesperson wrote in an email to media.

According to host Sonia Kruger, more than 600,000 people had already cast their vote by the episode’s halfway mark.

The Grand Final pulled 991,000 overnight metro viewers, making it the third most-watched program of the evening, behind Seven News (1,083,000) and Nine News (1,027,000).

Rouvas stunned viewers with a showstopping performance of Whitney Houston classic ‘I Will Always Love You’. She now has a deal with EMI Music Australia and $100,000 in prize money.

35-year-old Rouvas had been one of the favourites to win season eight, giving coach Boy George his first victory. Returning as an all-star, Rouvas first competed in season one back in 2012 under the direction of former coach Keith Urban.

Now it’s up to managing director John O’Donnell and the wider team at EMI Music Australia to transform Rouvas into a bonafide star, something the franchise has failed to do in Australia.

“A huge congratulations to Diana Rouvas on an incredible win in tonight’s The Voice Grand Finale,” says O’Donnell. “We are thrilled to welcome Diana to the EMI family and congratulate her and all the artists on The Voice 2019.

“Our congratulations also go to the amazing coaches, Channel Nine and ITV who delivered such a fantastic show. All of us at EMI look forward to working with Diana on new music.”

The winner’s single ‘Wait For No One’ is already available to download or stream and arrived at radio inboxes on Sunday night.

‘Wait For No One’ was written by Rouvas and her husband Eric Aranda, and mixed by Jeremy Wheatley, whose credits include Bon Jovi, Robbie Williams, Goldfrapp and Kylie Minogue.

Rouvas is managed by Karen-lee Herrmann-Smith.