The Final 9
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19 March 2005
The final 9 have been revealed after much deliberation
by the X factor judges. Each mentor has chosen their top
3 competitors for each category who will now battle it
out live on the arena stage in front of the nation.
16-24 Kate's Team
Gemma Purdy
Jacob Butler
Vincent Harder
25+ John's Team
Roslynn Mahe
Russell Gooley
Janie Shrapnel
Vocal Groups Mark's Team
Kaya
Random
The Brothership
More details Contestants
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The X Factor: Review
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19 March 2005
The X Factor
By Michael Idato
March 19, 2005
The X Factor, Ten, 7.30pm, Sunday
It seems slightly ironic that a year after Popstars
was consigned to television's junk heap and branded
a failure with barely more than a million viewers a
week, Ten can still find superlatives to adorn its press
releases about The X Factor, which is getting by with
almost 200,000 fewer viewers.
The X Factor, a promising concept, is clearly not working.
The audition phase echoed too loudly its stablemate,
Australian Idol, and failed to give the show enough
distinction to attract and hold its own audience. The
Holden-Reid-Ceberano judge chemistry has lacked the
zing that made Holden-Hines-Dicko so watchable. What
is worse, coupled with Nine's unstriking Star Struck,
the genre is being pumped dry. How many talent quests
are viewers expected to endure?
For Ten, the most pressing concern is not whether The
X Factor is a failure - that is apparent. More worrying
is whether the genre has enough blood left in it for
Idol III (due later this year) to survive the departure
of Dicko.
Source: smh.com.au
X marks the plot
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19 March 2005
X marks the plot
March 09, 2005
CHANNEL 10 execs have resorted to a bizarre ploy to
get viewers tuning into talent quest The X-Factor.
But don't try telling them their tactics are subliminal
advertising, because they're not at all happy with that
tag.
Apparently, screening a one-second flash of a big X
across the screen during other Channel 10 programs does
not constitute subliminal messaging.
The technique came to light last Thursday night when
it was used during an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.
A Ten spokeswoman told us the "promotions are
clearly apparent to the viewer and occupy multiple frames.
Therefore they are not subliminal."
According to the Australian Broadcasting Authority,
the technique does not breach broadcasting guidelines
unless it is "below or near the threshold of normal
awareness".
Who knows how exactly the ABA intends to police such
an airy-fairy guideline, but it seems to be mainly determined
by viewer complaints.
Channel 10 was criticised last week for failing to
encourage the local talent on X-Factor.
Some thought Ten's decision to screen American Idol
concurrently would dilute the number of talent-search
viewers between the two shows and result in lower ratings
for X-Factor.
Source: news.com.au
Judge's bitter split
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3 March 2005
Judge's bitter split
By Eleanor Sprawson
March 02, 2005
It tends to happen in every talent series: the performer
will want to link his or her rising star to one of the
greatest pop songs ever written, and so will launch
into one of those seminal tracks like Candle In The
Wind or Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
And John Reid will not flinch.
But there was a time when hearing them would have caused
the X Factor judge great pain.
Reid was Elton John's first manager, the man often
credited with creating the singer/songwriter, who guided
his career for more than 25 years from his days as an
unknown.
Reid was also the singer's first male love, and their
five-year relationship in the 1970s spanned the magical
era of some of John's greatest musical achievements.
It is only recently that Reid has been able to listen
to that music again with any sort of equanimity, after
a bitter feud with his former lover ended their business
relationship and long friendship in 1998, and led to
a vicious, drawn-out court battle that Reid finally
won in 2001.
"It was very hurtful at the time. It took me a
while to get through it," says Reid, The X Factor's
best-qualified but ironically least well known judge,
who shares a panel with Mark Holden and Kate Ceberano.
"But you know, time helps. And I'm very proud
of what I did do during those 25 or so years. But one
of the things that really did piss me off was that nobody
during the course of that (court case) ever pointed
to all the good stuff that I'd done. Nobody ever referred
to the wilderness years that I'd kept him afloat. That's
what hurt."
After coming to London and landing his first job at
a record company at just 17, by 19 the Glasgow-born
Reid had been put in charge of the London office of
the legendary Tamla Motown label.
It was there that he met Elton, then a shy performer
still making most of his living from writing songs for
other people. The two clicked and Reid left the record
company and set up his own company to manage Elton and
make him a star.
With Reid's support - and his ideas, like having the
singer dress up in over-the-top costumes - the two were
soon living a bizarre, fantastical life, having dinner
with Princess Margaret and holding some of the'70s'
most famous and outrageous parties, yet also living
a quiet, unpublicised domestic life together in a London
flat and later a Surrey bungalow, where Elton would
call him Beryl after the actress Beryl Reid.
"It certainly could be a bit schizophrenic,"
says Reid, now 54.
Even when the two ended their relationship as lovers
in 1976, the friendship and the business partnership
remained strong, with Reid a constant source of support
during the singer's career and drug problems in the'80s.
He was even Elton's best man when he married Renate
Blauel in Sydney in 1984.
"There was never any question right up until the
end that there was anything wrong," says Reid.
"(Then) I was just like literally chopped off overnight."
The trouble began in early 1998, just after Elton was
knighted, when a letter from his accountants outlining
his spending habits found its way into the British press.
Elton blamed Reid's management company for leaking
it and began fretting about Reid's honesty, which led
to the case that finally came to London's High Court
at the end of 2000, in which Elton sued the company
for mishandling his money.
Elton lost the case and quite a bit of face but his
own win didn't make Reid feel any better about the split.
"The fact is if he'd actually sat down and talked
to me about it we could have worked it out and then
gone our separate ways. But that's not Elton's nature.
He always has to be right ... and he always has to be
seen to win," says Reid.
"But there was certainly no wrong-doing on my
part, and I haven't spoken to him since. He can't even
look me in the eye."
It was the timing of John's abandonment that still
hurts the most.
"I'd spent a lot of time lobbying the government
to get him a knighthood ... but for me it was really
a rotten year. My mother had just died ... and so I
felt that he was very insensitive.
"But I had seen him do it before to other people
- once he'd made up his mind that was it, it was like
an iron curtain came down and you were ex-communicated.
"Because he lives like a modern-day potentate.
And everything revolved around him."
So since the split, Reid - one of the world's highest-paid
rock managers who has also managed Queen, The Jackson
Five and Billy Connolly - has concentrated on stage
productions and travelling.
Indeed, The X Factor marks his first active engagement
with management for some time, when from this Sunday
the show moves into its "masterclass" phase
in which the three judges will try to guide and groom
the finalists into true stars.
Reid has been assigned the singers aged 25 or over
- so viewers get a rare chance to see the mastery of
a music industry legend at work, even if it has so far
seemed some contestants lucky enough to be faced with
him have no idea who he is.
"I'm kind of getting to be known as various things,"
he laughs.
"I'm 'the guy in the middle' (he sits in between
Holden and Ceberano on the judges' desk) or 'the guy
with the pink shirt'.
"I mean it's nice not to have an image. It means
I am able to really concentrate on what I'm seeing,
and what I'm hearing. And that's the best way to do
this job."
Source: news.com.au
Tickets to The X Factor
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3 March 2005
Performance Shows (Sundays) and Verdict Shows (Mondays)
will be broadcast live from Vodafone Arena, Melbourne
VIC from Sun March 20th, 2005.
Each week new studio audience tickets will be released
immediately following the broadcast of the Verdict Show.
Free tickets are released 2 weeks in advance. For example,
tickets released following the March 21st verdict will
be for the 3rd and 4th April Shows.
You will need to re-submit your details if you wish
to apply for newly-released tickets.
If you wish to apply for tickets to any the shows please
follow the instructions on the official X factor site
at http://www.xfactoronten.com.au/ticketing.asp
Contestants Through To Masterclass
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3 March 2005
16-24 Contestants Through to Masterclass
Jack Byrnes 16 VIC, Gemma Purdy 16 VIC, Jacob Butler 22
SA, Victoria McGee 20 NSW and Vincent Harder 22 NSW.
25+ Contestants Through To Masterclass
Roslyn Howell 37 NSW, Cavan Te Ratana 31 NSW, Russell
Gooley 27 WA, Reegan Jolley 30 VIC, Jennifer Anderson
35 VIC.
Groups Through to Masterclass
2XL
Reuben Kaa 28 VIC, Mita Kaa 49 VIC
The Phillipou Brothers (formerly 45 Sheriff)
Adam Philippou 30 SA, George Philippou 34 SA, Michael
Phillippou 28 SA
Beyond Society's Kontrol
Benjamin Easton 18 SA, Gary McGlen 18 SA
Kaya (formerly Kaya in August)
Alexandra Kaye 29 NSW, Emma Deans 22 NSW, Julia Boehm
23 NSW, Sally Stevens 25 NSW
Random
Andy-Iese Tolo-Paepae 20 QLD, Donald Tauvao 16 QLD,
Xylocaine Latu 25 QLD, Tasesa Junior Tauvao 16 QLD,
Wayne Tauvao 18 QLD
More details Contestants
>>
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