Budiey
Final Transcript
FBC PUBLICITY: THE X FACTOR Conference Call with L.A. Reid
October 20, 2011/2:30 p.m. EDT
SPEAKERS
L.A. Reid
Michael Fabiani
PRESENTATION
Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to THE X FACTOR conference call with L.A. Reid. All participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be conducting a question and answer session. Instructions will be given before the questions and answers. (Operator’s Instructions) As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded and I’d like to turn the call over to Mr. Michael Fabiani. Please, go ahead.
M. Fabiani Thank you. Hi, everyone. I just wanted to say thank you for participating in THE X FACTOR conference call with L.A. Reid.
L.A. Reid Hello, everyone.
M. Fabiani Just a quick reminder, THE X FACTOR goes live for the first time with performances from the top seventeen this coming Tuesday, October 25th on FOX with a special two-and-a-half hour episode from 8 to 10:30 p.m. live East Coast and tape delayed on the West Coast. I would like to turn over the call to L.A. Reid for question and answers.
Moderator And we’ll start right out then with Jamie Steinberg of Deadbolt.com. Please, go ahead.
J. Steinberg Hey, L.A. thanks for your time.
L.A. Reid Hi. How are you?
J. Steinberg Not too bad, man. Can you talk about your decision process with Chris Rene and how you worked through the issue of his past to give him a shot? That must have been tough for you.
L.A. Reid You know, Chris Rene has been one of the most popular contestants on this show thus far. So, the only thing that was difficult was the fact that my category had so many guys that I really liked and some really incredible talent, and just narrowing it down to four was a very tough thing. But Chris was always a standout from his very first audition and I’m really happy to have him.
Moderator And moving on, we’ll go to Washington Post with Emily Yahr. Please, go ahead.
E. Yahr Hi, I was wondering. You know this is a competition between the four judges all set to see what team wins, but what happens now that Simon has an extra player on his team and how will that work with the seventeen contestants if the season is sort of mapped out for sixteen people?
L.A. Reid Well, I’m not exactly sure what that process is, Emily, and I don’t know if it means that we will end up cutting two in the first episode. I’m not exactly sure. This is for me sort of my first time at bat, my first barbecue, so I’m learning it as I go, but I was very happy though that Simon did go back and rethink Melanie from Miami. I thought she was really fantastic in the auditions. So, however it works out, I think so far it’s working out for the better.
E. Yahr Okay, I know Simon had initially said before the season started that anything under 20 million viewers would be a disappointment and I know the ratings haven’t really hit that point yet, so I was wondering if you were surprised by the ratings and if the show is doing anything to try and bring in more viewers?
L.A. Reid Well, the fact of the matter is that we have a very successful show and we have an average of over 12 million viewers averaging, so it’s a very successful show, and whether we hit twenty or not—you know, I’d like to hit thirty. I mean, I’d like to sweep it, but that’s not really what is important to me. That’s a statement that Simon put out there and I think it was an aspirational statement and I hope that we can at some point get there, but I’m not disappointed that we’re not there.
E. Yahr Thanks.
Moderator And next, we’ll go to the line of Rodney Ho with the Atlanta Journal. Please, go ahead.
R. Ho Hey, L.A.
L.A. Reid Hi, Rodney.
R. Ho How are you? Just a thought—I was wondering, will you trash talk Simon Cowell’s choices in any way? Would you have done anything differently with the eight women he had?
L.A. Reid Yes, I would have probably made—I won’t trash talk his decisions, but I have a very different taste than Simon, so I may have made some very different choices, but Simon is incredible and the most experienced guy at doing what we’re doing here with THE X FACTOR and with talent competition on television. So, I’m actually here to learn and watch and see exactly what Simon does, but my taste is different, so the answer is yes; I would have made some different choices.
R. Ho Was Caitlin one of the ones you would have kept?
L. A. Reid That one I’ll keep to myself, Rodney.
R. Ho Yes, you’re not going to name names?
L. A. Reid No names. No names.
R. Ho Alright. Thank you.
Moderator And next, we’ll go to the line of Chuck Barney with the Oakland Tribune. Please, go ahead.
C. Barney Hey there.
L.A. Reid Hi, Chuck, how are you?
C. Barney Good. Thanks for doing this.
L. A. Reid Absolutely.
C. Barney Getting back to Chris a little bit, since he’s a local guy for us. First of all, what do you think you have to do to win this thing? What kind of coaching would you give him? What would you tell him?
L.A. Reid You know, he has a very unique talent. You know, Chris is somewhere between a singer and almost like a sing rapper. I don’t know what the right word is for it, but he really just has to nail the material. He has to find the right material and then he has to give a compelling performance—a really competitive and compelling performance. If he gets into the moment and he really feels comfortable with the material as he did with his own material when he did his initial audition—if he finds that same comfort with the material that he’ll do on the show, then he’s going to be fine.
C. Barney And one other thing real quick. Is anything, you know, obviously, you and Simon both expressed a little bit of weariness about, “Oh, okay, you’ve got to stay on the right track.†Is anything being done to keep them on the right track? What are you guys—or does the show leave them alone, or what? How does that go?
L.A. Reid Chris gave us his word that he would stay straight. I’m going to take him at his word. When I see him, he looks amazing, and every time I see him he looks even improved from the time before, so whatever he is doing in his own time, it looks like it’s working and I have faith in Chris. I think that he’s going to really emerge as an amazing star and also, a man that we can be proud of who does have the strength to overcome his illness, and the disease he calls ‘addiction.’
C. Barney Alright. Thank you very much.
Moderator And next, from Entertainment Weekly, we go to the line of Annie Barrett. Please, go ahead.
L. A. Reid Hi, Annie.
A. Barrett Hi, L.A. what’s up?
L.A. Reid You got it. How are you?
A. Barrett I’m good. I wonder and during the auditions I noticed that sometimes Simon would place a lot of emphasis on spectacle and you would be a little skeptical of that. I wonder particularly—what do you think of Nicole’s decision to take Dexter Haygood over some of those other over thirty’s? What can he—is it all about the spectacle and is it just because he can put on a much better show? Would you have made a different choice than that?
L. A. Reid Well, first of all, I like Dexter a lot, and I respect Nicole’s decision to put Dexter through. Dexter is clearly an artist, a performer, and in this case, a contestant who’s gone through some very, very tough times in his life, right? I don’t think it was so much a focus on spectacle. I think it was more believing in someone and giving someone an opportunity to rebound and to really get their life on track, because he’s clearly talented and yes, he’s a showman, but I don’t think it was a decision based on spectacle. I think it was based on opening a door and giving someone an opportunity to straighten up.
A. Barrett Okay.
L.A. Reid And that I support, one-hundred percent.
A. Barrett Thank you. Also, this is a little off-topic, but just the experience of being on TV and knowing that you’re on camera while watching these people perform, what is going through your head, because you’ve had some very—I particularly enjoyed sort of your seated dance moves. How aware are you when you’re kind of feeling the music that you’re on camera? Do you think about that?
L.A. Reid I don’t see a camera. I don’t think about a camera. As far as I’m concerned, I’m sitting in my office and I’m admiring talent, or I’m sitting in the theatre and I’m admiring talent and responding to it, but I don’t do anything for the camera. I don’t see the camera, I don’t notice the camera and I have no concerns for the camera.
A. Barrett Okay, thank you.
L. A. Reid Thank you.
Moderator And next, we’ll go to the line of Cynthia Horner with Hip Hop Weekly.
C. Horner Hi, L.A.
L.A. Reid Hi. How are you?
C. Horner How are you?
L.A. Reid Wait a minute, who is this?
C. Horner Cynthia Horner.
L. A. Reid Oh, my goodness, hi, Cynthia.
C. Horner We’ll have to talk again off line.
L. A. Reid Truly, oh my goodness. I’m so happy to hear your voice.
C. Horner Thank you. I’ll ask you a question you will enjoy answering. This question is there are a lot of people who have been saying in recent years that these televised competitions will actually replace A&R departments at record companies because of the fact that the different promising artists get all this visibility. As somebody who is a record company executive, do you believe that this is the wave of the future or do you just see these reality show competitions as just an enhancement, just another way to discover talent?
L. A. Reid That’s a really good question, Cynthia. The answer is that it’s an enhancement because it doesn’t replace A&R. If we look at the charts today, if we look at the most popular songs in the world today, you’ll see that they are largely made up of artists that are found through traditional sources, right? And yet, we do have some talent that is developed from TV reality contests, but for the most part, it hasn’t changed much.
The good news is that between X FACTOR and other talent competitions and things like YouTube, we now have more resources for talent, and as a record executive, what we’re looking for are more opportunities to discover talent. So, for us, it’s only an enhancement, but clearly not a replacement.
C. Horner Okay, great answer. Thank you.
L. A. Reid Thank you, Cynthia. It’s really great to hear from you.
Moderator Next, we’ll go to the line of Carla Hay with Examiner.com.
L. A. Reid Hi, Carla.
C. Hay Hi, L.A., nice to talk to you. I had a question about song selection. We hear on so many of these talent shows how important song selection is for a contestant, and during the judges homes phase of the competition, we didn’t really get to see how the songs were selected. So, can you tell us about how the songs are selected—things that we may not have seen on TV?
L. A. Reid Well, we spend a considerable amount of time going through material and trying to find things that we think are sometimes a fit for the contestant, and sometimes a stretch for the contestant, because in the traditional world of records, when artists are selecting material or when we as record executives are selecting material for them, it may not always be their comfort zone and there are times when we’ve forced them to stretch that they’ve actually had their biggest successes. We spend a considerable amount of time going through material and trying different versions of it, different variations on it.
What we try not to do is to just simply do karaoke. Right? But, we do spend a considerable amount of time on material. I love music and I love song, so the most difficult thing is I have about 30,000 songs that I go through to try to find—it’s insane. I make myself crazy.
C. Hay As a mentor then you have the final decision on the songs that we saw performed from your category?
L. A. Reid Yes.
C. Hay Okay, and then really quickly—since Drew Ryniewicz says she’s a huge Justin Bieber fan and you’re friends with Justin, what has he said about Drew if anything since you said he’s been watching the show, and hopefully, we’ll see him perform on this season’s finale with Drew. That would be great.
L. A. Reid Yes, that would be—well, that’s great. Now, see, you do great A&R, too, I see. The thing is I love Drew. I have not spoken to Justin about Drew at all. I think she’s amazing. I think she’s really a contender here, a really competitive talent and Justin is a good sport and he takes it all in the right spirit. He doesn’t take it seriously when somebody says that they want to be better than him or beat him at what he does. He’s a good sport and he’s got a level head. He takes it all in fun.
Moderator Very good. Next, we’ll go to the line of Joey Guerra with Houston Chronicle. Please, go ahead.
L. A. Reid Hi, Joey.
J. Guerra Hi, how are you?
L. A. Reid Good, how are you?
J. Guerra I’m good, thank you, first and foremost. I wanted to ask you—I know with reality shows—specifically, with singing competitions, I think, always the ultimate trick is translating that person who wins or even the top two into a legitimate star that’s played on the radio that’s accepted by music audiences. What is X FACTOR do you think going to do to really sort of bridge that gap in a way that maybe some other shows haven’t been able to?
L. A. Reid Every time we sign a talent in the traditional world, it’s a roll of the dice . And if there were a crystal ball, then this would be a very simple job, but the fact is, it’s trial and error and it will continue to be trial and error. And yes, we will make every effort to turn some of these contestants into global stars, but no differently than our traditional world of records it’s going to be a crap shoot and we’ll see how it comes out. I’m hopeful. I do see talent that I think has the ability to go the distance, but it’s going to ultimately be up to the public as it always is.
J. Guerra Great.
Moderator Next, we’ll go to the line from TV Guide Magazine of Sydney Buckstone. Please, go ahead.
L. A. Reid Hello.
S. Buckstone Oh, hi.
L. A. Reid Hi, how are you?
S. Buckstone Good, how are you?
L. A. Reid Good.
S. Buckstone Why do you think that each contestant that you pick has the potential to win?
L. A. Reid Why do I think they have the potential to win? Well, I think that my guys are very unique. I think, as an example, Astro being a 15-year-old rapper who entered the competition doing original material, as far as I know, now I could be wrong, but I think that’s a very unique approach and it may be a first. So, I like his uniqueness. Phillip Lomax—for a guy to be 22 years old, and to have been so influenced by an era of Frank Sinatra and others, I find that pretty fascinating. So, I think he is a very unique guy and he has a great shot. Marcus Canty is just a great singer. All I can tell you is that Marcus is a great singer, and ultimately I’m moved by talent and I really love his talent. And, Chris Rene, who is arguably the most popular contestant in the competition, is just really special and also entered the competition with original material and has this style that’s somewhere between singing and rapping. He’s just a really special guy and a really lovable guy with an interesting voice and an interesting story. So, I feel really good about the contestants and the guys in my category.
Now, I will say that there were people in other categories that I loved equally and, some of them I wish I had, I have to tell you.
S. Buckstone Like who?
L. A. Reid No, that I won’t tell you, but you’ll see as the show goes on. You’ll see. I am going to be pretty obvious because I don’t have a poker face, so if I like something, I react to it, and my reaction will tell the story.
Moderator And, next, we’ll go to the line of Roy Trakin with XfinityTV.com.
R. Trakin Hey, L. A. how you doing?
L. A. Reid I’m good, Roy, how are you?
R. Trakin I’m pretty good, you’re great on the show my friend, really good. You’re a natural.
L. A. Reid Thank you so much. Thank you.
R. Trakin I’m wondering in sort of comparing the show to AMERICAN IDOL and one of the talking points in your criticism or of your evaluation of the candidates is the $5 million prize. How much does that influence the final choices as you go through the talent and judge it?
L. A. Reid First and foremost, Roy, it’s the talent. It’s about the talent and the uniqueness of the talent, and their reach and their appeal and their ability to deliver material and to try to show some range and some diversity. That’s the first and most important thing, right? Yes, we talk about the prize, the $5 million, because it’s a lot of money. It’s probably the most money anybody has ever won on a talent competition such as this, so, yes, we put emphasis on it, but for me, the most important emphasis is actually the talent itself.
R. Trakin Just one follow-up—I’m curious about your reaction to Brian Bradley, the young rapper. At times, you seem very enthusiastic about him and then at times, you wonder if he’s a novelty. Do you think he’s the real deal? Can he find an audience out there?
L. A. Reid Well, we have to see, we really do have to see. He’s quite popular on YouTube and YouTube is a great indicator. He gets lots of hits. He’s probably a million-and-a-half hits or something like that. That’s nothing to sneeze at. So, he certainly has the ability to have popularity. But, again, we’ll do the best that we can. I really like him, by the way. I should say that even though I make comments that sort of go back and forth. Those are just me voicing my concerns. I would voice my concerns about a superstar. I voice my concerns to Mariah Carey about her life and her music, so me having concerns is not an indication that I don’t like or believe in a contestant or an artist, but ultimately, it’s going to be up to the public.
Moderator And next from TV America, Mike Hughes. Please go ahead.
M. Hughes Hey, L. A., you’ve always had a real ear for mainstream music that’s popular and some of the other people have had that same kind of knack like Barry Gordy and Babyface. What you all have in common is you come from the Midwest. And so, I was wondering, is there anything about your Midwest upbringing, your Cincinnati upbringing that kind of shaped your taste in some way?
L. A. Reid Yes, my taste was shaped largely because—that’s a very good point you know, and I wish I could take credit for it. I can’t in any fashion. I grew up in a household where there was a lot of music and my mother listened to music and my family enjoyed music and I listened to music from all genre’s and I think it helped me develop my taste, but I don’t know. I don’t quite know why, because Quincy Jones is from Seattle and he has amazing taste, too.
M. Hughes Good point. Hey, just one silly question—
L. A. Reid … is from Turkey and he has the better taste than all of us.
M. Hughes Okay, yes. I always read that you got the L. A. name because you were wearing an LA Dodger’s t-shirt, but I never heard you say–
L. A. Reid …heard you say, LA Lakers but it you just wouldn’t be true, but I am a Laker fan, but go on.
M. Hughes Okay, why in Cincinnati were you wearing an LA Dodger’s shirt? Weren’t you a Reds fan?
L. A. Reid Because the LA Dodgers were playing the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. Now, I don’t know what year it was, but I was pretty young.
Moderator And from the line of Joshua Maloni of Niagara Frontier Publications.
J. Maloni Hi, Mr. Reid. Thank you for your time today.
L. A. Reid Hi, how are you?
J. Maloni Good, thank you. Out here in Buffalo, we were pretty shocked to see Caitlin Koch get cut. What in your estimation was the biggest surprise cut from your team or from any of the other teams?
L. A. Reid There were a few surprises, but for the most part, I didn’t put a lot of emphasis on it. I didn’t really try to think other people’s categories through. I had my hands full with my guys and it was very tough for me, so, look, I like Caitlin a lot. There were others that I liked as well, but I don’t criticize the decisions that the other judges made. I don’t really criticize those decisions. I have my own taste and they have their taste and I’m now in the competition to win and to beat them, so I’m focusing more on my guys then I’m focusing on the decisions that they make.
J. Maloni Yes, obviously, in your position, you’ve given people approval and you’ve rejected musicians over the years, but for this particular process, how difficult was it to pare your team down to the final four?
L. A. Reid It was tough, it was tough. What would have been simple is if I could have had five. If I was Simon and I could have five, it would have been a little more, a little simpler. But, I’m not Simon, and I can only have four and that’s what made it tough because there were actually five that I really liked.
Moderator Alright, then our last question will come from Premier Guide Media and Miller Wallace, please go ahead.
M. Wallace Hello. Hi, L. A.
L. A. Reid Hi, how are you?
M. Wallace I’m good, how are you today?
L. A. Reid Good thanks.
M. Wallace Okay, my question is as far as the show and how everything is going and your expectations, is this … or just like is it going as well as you thought it would be or is it’s been making it?
L. A. Reid It’s going amazingly well. I’m having a great time. I’m really enjoying the contestants. I’m really enjoying the judges. I’m really enjoying the time I spent with Simon, learning a lot, having a great time and yes, it’s everything I hoped that it would be.
M. Wallace Okay, I have one last question—I see that you really believe in the contestants that are out there and you’re very driven with what you do, and as far as everything goes, I know you don’t want to tell who you want to win, but I’m still curious to know.
L. A. Reid Who’s going to—I don’t know who’s going to win. I wish I knew who’s going to win. I have no idea. We have 17 contestants, 17, right and we are long ways from knowing who’s going to win. Seventeen may sound like a small number, but that’s a lot of people and a lot of opportunities and a lot of performances and a lot of decisions, and it’s going to be really tough. I just hope that it comes out of my category whoever wins.
Moderator Then, with no further questions for Mr. Reid, please continue.
M. Fabiani I just wanted to thank everyone, again, for taking the time to participate in today’s call with L. A. Reid and to let you know that a transcript of the call will be emailed to you tomorrow afternoon. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to give me a call at (212) 556-2515. And again, THE X FACTOR will have its first live episode this Tuesday, October 25th from 8 to 10:30 p.m. on FOX. Thank you, L. A.
L. A. Reid Thank you.
Moderator And, ladies and gentlemen, this conference will be available for replay after 4 p.m. Eastern today through October 27th at midnight. You may access the AT&T replay system by dialing 1 (800) 475-6701 or toll
(320) 365-3844 using access code 221510.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T. You may now disconnect.
