As a mentor on American Idol, Big Machine Label Group President and CEO, Scott Borchetta, has to make sure he gives unbiased guidance and mentoring to all contestants, despite the fact that he has a keen eye for talent and artists he’d love to sign to his label. Scott says, “I knew coming into this that whatever contestants showed up, that I was gonna have to give my best to each one of them. So you really have to work hard to not play favorites.”

While Scott admits he is naturally drawn to certain people or artists, at the end of the day, his job is to develop each individual contestant and to bring out the best in each of them. He says, “It’s not that hard, really, to get inside each one of the contestants from a musical perspective and to help them, because they all have different likes, different needs, different skill sets. So just from a pure artist development standpoint, that’s just doing my job. So that part really hasn’t been that hard.”

You can see new episodes of American Idol every Wednesday night at 8pm ET/7pm CT on FOX.

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Scott Borchetta – not playing favorites :40
“That’s a great question because I knew coming into this that whatever contestants showed up, that I was gonna have to give my best to each one of them. So you really have to work hard to not play favorites. You’re naturally going to be drawn to certain people, certain artists, certain musicians, and certain musical attractions, and it’s not that hard, really, to get inside each one of the contestants from a musical perspective and to help them, because they all have different likes, different needs, different skill sets. So just from a pure artist development standpoint, that’s just doing my job. So that part really hasn’t been that hard.”