Fame show to offer a year's luxury

Contestants will be locked in a £35m mansion

The winner of the BBC's new TV talent show Fame Academy stands to gain a £1m record contract and a year in the lap of luxury, the corporation revealed on Wednedsay.

The winner will live in a luxury Notting Hill flat and have fresh flowers delivered every week, holiday in the Caribbean and record at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios in London.

There will also be a record deal worth £1m from Mercury Records and a cameo role in a Hollywood movie.

Cat Deeley and Patrick Kielty will host the BBC One show

But the winner will only have one year to enjoy these perks - for at midnight, one year to the day after they graduate from Fame Academy, everything will be taken away.

Only if they have managed to become successful in their own right will they be able to keep up the lifestyle to which they have been accustomed.

Ratings

The show, which will see 12 hopeful stars filmed in a £35m mansion for 24 hours a day, will be shown three times per week on BBC One - a half-hourly show at 1900 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and an hourly programme at 2030 on Fridays.

The scheduling - either just before or just after EastEnders - makes the programme one of the major planks in the BBC's autumn ratings strategy.

Further editions will run on BBC Choice, while Radio 1 will also be involved with the programme.

It will also attempt to outshine the other major reality talent show currently on the UK's screens, Popstars - The Rivals, on ITV1.

Popstars is currently attracting up to 7.5 million viewers in its Saturday tea-time slot.

The winners of Popstars and Fame Academy will both release singles in time for Christmas.

"Headmaster" Richard Park (in suit) will assess contestants

The series will start on Friday 4 October, and will combine music and dance lessons with a series of tough creative challenges.

The contestants, who have been chosen from 10,000 who auditioned, will get special lessons from stars including Shania Twain, Enrique Iglesias and Anastacia.

Cat Deeley and Patrick Kielty will host the BBC One shows.

Strict rules

The students in the £35m Witanhurst House, north London, will be able to take advantage of the specially-fitted dance studios, gym and hot tub.

But they will have to cope with strict rules - such as being up at 0600 every day, lights out at 2300, no smoking anywhere in the building and only one phone call a week.

One person will be expelled in each weekly "showdown".

The three judged to be doing less well by their teachers will be put "on probation", with their fates to be decided by a viewers' vote.

Phone vote profits will go to Children In Need and a bursary for talented wannabes to attend performing arts schools.