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Warner accuses X-Factor producers of Sony act bias

By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 12 December 2011

Warner Music has submitted a complaint to media regulator OfCom claiming that this weekend ‘X-Factor’ producers unfairly prioritised artists signed to Sony Music for its highly viewed final shows.

Sony, of course, owns half of Simon Cowell’s Syco company, one of the producers of the tedious telly talent contest. Even with ratings slipping somewhat this series, ‘X-Factor’ is still by far the most watched music programme on British TV, hence the desire of pretty much every mainstream pop star, however big, to guest on the show when they have something to flog.

Although Sony Music has a stake in the talent show, OfCom rules mean that the major can’t overtly use it as a promotional platform for its own acts, so producers usually go out of their way to ensure artists from the other three majors are represented. However, four of the six artists to guest on the final two editions of ‘X-Factor’ for 2011 this weekend came from Sony labels.

That said, three were former ‘X-Factor’ contestants who have gone on to have successful pop careers, so their presence was possibly editorially justified, though two of them – JLS and One Direction – were former losers, arguably rendering the final votes the shows were staged to host pointless.

According to The Guardian, who reported that Warner had filed a complaint with OfCom ahead of this weekend’s ‘X’ shows on Friday, insiders at the major were particularly pissed off that former ‘X’ winner Leona Lewis appeared, as she has no current album to promote, and some reckon her terrible cover versions EP, released on Friday, was put out just to capitalise on her ‘X-Factor’ guest spot.

Noting that the fourth Sony act to guest was Westlife, The Guardian quoted an ‘industry insider’ as saying: “‘The ‘X-Factor’ final should feature the biggest acts in the world. Leona Lewis is already frankly on the way down. JLS and One Direction have already been on this series, and you have to question the choice of Westlife”.

Warner’s complaint was specifically against ITV, the actual OfCom licence holder here, and accused the commercial channel of failing to exercise proper editorial control over its pop talent show. The Guardian suggested that Universal Music may also submit a complaint, though given three of the current ‘X-Factor’ judges are signed to its labels, plus Universal enjoys a good relationship with ITV as the producer of most of the channel’s other prime time pop specials, that actually seems unlikely.

Syco and ITV have already disputed Warner’s claims, pointing out that over the whole series Universal artists had the most exposure on the show this year, that most of the Sony acts to appear are editorially relevant former ‘X’ contestants, and that both Warner and EMI had three acts each on the programme, including one each on the final weekend.

In amongst all that promotion and product placement, the final two stages of the talent contest were able to occur, with Little Mix being declared the overall winners of this year’s competition. Their cover of the Damien Rice song ‘Cannonball’ is out today, meaning it will have to stay top of the singles chart for two weeks to be Christmas number one, the festive chart coming out on Christmas Day this year.