Live challenge for fame contestants
The 12 contestants on tough new UK talent show Fame Academy will kick off the series with one of the biggest challenges of their lives – singing live on television, it was announced today.
Each of them will be put through their paces to show what they have to offer during the first edition of the BBC1 show on Friday, October 4.
The series will be up against Celebrity Fit Club and the big movie is expected to be Rogue Trader – starring Ewan McGregor – on ITV1 when it begins that night.
BBC bosses have scheduled an hour-long opening episode of the show in which 12 hopefuls are given expert tuition and are cut off from the outside world in a £35m (€55.5m) mansion.
Viewers who tune in at 8.30pm will be introduced to the contestants, who have not yet been unveiled, as well as head teacher Richard Park and his team.
The music wannabes will have to perform for the cameras during the live show, without the aid of backing tapes.
There will also be another edition of the programme later that night at 10.35pm.
Speculation has been rife that Fame Academy will be up against ITV1’s Popstars: The Rivals on Saturday nights, but BBC bosses are keeping future screening plans a secret until nearer the time.
The prize for the winner of the series, in which contestants are gradually expelled if they fail to win enough support from viewers and fellow students, is being kept under wraps. However it is said to be the biggest prize ever for a TV talent show.
A spokesman for the show: “The 12 students will have been picked from all over Britain so hopefully there’ll be a nationwide interest in seeing all these people perform for the first time.”
