Tonight the Peacock launches The Voice, its potential rival to American Idol, with a star-stuffed “coach” panel and a concept that puts a literal twist on a hugely popular reality format. The show represents NBC’s last best chance to exit the season with one new ratings winner.

But can Christina Aguilera, Cee-Lo Green, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine deliver the goods against a super-sizedGlee and Dancing With the Stars?

“This is really unknown territory,” says one industry insider when asked an opinion about the ratings.

Predictions I’m hearing from insiders are all over the map — from the pragmatic mid-2s in the adults 18-49 demo to the exclamatory 5.0.

NBC’s other singing competition series, The Sing-Off, gave the network the gumption to tryThe Voice. It started in the mid-2s and topped out a 3.3 earlier this year. Mid-2s is also whereThe Biggest Loser has been landing in recent weeks in The Voice‘s slot — it’s a safe bet NBC hopes for at least that much. Another factor: This is a sluggish time of year for broadcast television, so with most ratings falling to season lows in recent weeks, it’s a rough time to launch something new.

There’s no safe bet here. If I had to guess, I’d go with a fairly optimistic 3.5.

NBC rather not have anybody comparing the show’s ratings to American Idol, the biggest thing on TV, but just fyi, the Fox show has been averaging about 7.0 lately for performance shows this season.

Here’s another question: What is Glee going to do for its 90-minute episode? Will viewers stick with it or switch at 9 p.m. to The Voice? We’ll have the numbers tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, all hands at NBC are on deck to get out the news. Cee-Lo Green recently tweeted: “Hey yall its in my contract to tweet about the voice premiere 2nite so…..WATCH IT DAMIT:) I’ll be the baldheaded cute one with red Shades.”

Source: EW