Santiago Wins the Third Installment of Telemundo’s “La Voz Kids”

Jonael Santiago is the pint-sized voz of the season…

The 11-year-old Puerto Rican dynamo with an outsize personality was declared the winner of the third installment of La Voz Kids, the Spanish-language kiddie version of The Voice on the Telemundo network.

Jonael Santiago

Santiago’s win — determined by audience voting from more than 1.2 million viewers — was not a slam dunk by any means. This third season boasted a particularly talented lineup of finalists, including 11-year-old Shanty Sumaya, a Mexican American from Texas who already plays gigs in her home state and is particularly good at grupero; and 14-year-old Franser Pazosa, a Cuban-born 14-year-old from Portland, Oregon, with a stunning, versatile voice.

Santiago, a diminutive boy who looks younger than his years, couldn’t match their vocals, but he made up for it with stage presence, attitude and dance moves that evoked Bruno Mars and Michael Jackson. His grand finale was Mars’ “Treasure,” a song chosen for him by coach Natalia Jimenez.

“He’s an amazing package,” Jimenez told Billboard after the win. “He can dance, he can sing, he can act. I wanted him to sing something he can move with. He’s really good at singing ballads, but the most impressive thing is seeing him dance and sing at the same time.”

Even Daddy Yankee, a competing coach, agreed. “It’s so entertaining to watch Jona onstage,” he said after Santiago’s final performance.

Santiago competed against contestants coached by Jimenez, ranchera singer Pedro Fernandez and reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, who shared the stage as coaches for the first time in this third season of La Voz. The show, whose previous coaches have included Paulina Rubio and Prince Royce, has become a ratings success for  Telemundo.

La Voz Kids is a variation on The Voice’s format that features kids as contestants, major music stars as coaches and big-name guest performers. For the Sunday night finale, held — as the entire season was — at Universal Orlando, featured performers for the evening, beside the contestants, were Marc Anthony and Gente de Zona, Mexican singer Lucero and La Voz coach Fernandez.

The winner of La Voz Kids gets a $50,000 cash prize from AT&T that goes toward their education, and a recording contract from Universal Music Latino for the production of a song and video. That could go in different directions for Santiago, who moved from Puerto Rico to Miami two years ago to further his training in music and dance and sings equally well in both languages.

“I felt comfortable with ‘Treasure,’” he said of his final performance. His favorite acts, he says are “Demi Lovato — I love her — and Tori Kelly. I really want to record in the studio ‘All In My Head’ by Tori Kelly; she’s awesome.” However, he added, “Spanish is my first language and I came to Miami two years ago and I’m not perfect [in English yet]. I’m Puerto Rican and I always will be and I’ll talk Spanish forever.”

Vergara: Television’s Highest Paid Actress for a Third Straight Year

It’s mo’ money, mo’ honors for Sofia Vergara

For the third straight year, the 42-year-old Colombian actress and Modern Family star tops Forbes’ list of the television’s highest paid actresses.

Sofia Vergara

Vergara reportedly earned an estimated $37 million between June 2013 and June 2014, according to the financial magazine. That’s more than the top-earning television actor, Ashton Kutcher ($26 million).

While the actress earns a reported $325,000 per episode on her Emmy-winning ABC comedy series, the bulk of her earnings come from her lucrative endorsements and licensing deals.  Vergara is the face of Diet Pepsi, CoverGirl, Head & Shoulders, AT&T and the medication Synthroid.

She’s the also the co-founder of Latin World Entertainment, a multi-million dollar empire. The talent management and entertainment-marketing firm recently teamed up with CNET to launch a Spanish-language tech news site. Vergara’s brand also continues to grow thanks to her 12-year deal with Kmart, a strategic move to better appeal to Hispanic shoppers.

Earlier this year, she also launched her first fragrance for HSN and starred in the indie movie Chef, which received rave critical reviews and became the only summer indie to hit $30 million at the box office.

Vergara’s annual take is up from last year’s high of $30 million and her $19-million estimate in 2012.