BBC begins its search for a star ? but the real winners will be behind the camera
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Your support makes all the difference.If all goes to plan, it will push the BBC to the top of the ratings, magic up at least one more instant celebrity and make lots of people – from phone companies to its producers – a large pile of money.
Fame Academy, the latest mutation of television's "gawp and dial" genre, made its debut last night in front of what its makers hope will be a large and lasting viewing audience over the next three months.
The BBC1 show, which at £4.5m is the most expensive popular entertainment programme in the corporation's history, is designed to produce a musical star from another cast of fame-hungry hopefuls.
For three nights a week, viewers will be kept updated on the progress of 12 students, aged 18 to 35, as they are groomed for greatness under the steady gaze of 35 cameras.
Billed as combining "the best elements of Big Brother and Pop Idol", Fame Academy is the BBC's first venture into the eviction-based school of reality TV. It is also the ultimate test of the strategy by the BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey to explore new areas in the channel's prime-time popular entertainment slots.
A BBC spokesman said: "This is a modern talent contest. It is new territory. It will have some of the elements of other shows but overall it is a much bigger package, it is serious entertainment."
Or, as the breathless billing on the BBC1 website put it yesterday: "All we need now is for the students to start gossiping, flirting and fighting for attention."
To make Academy a hit, the BBC has pulled out all the stops. The show is being produced by Endemol, the production house that created the Big Brother phenomenon.
It will be screened three nights a week on BBC1 and every day on the digital channel BBC Choice (soon to become BBC3), with internet updates and web votes.
The BBC has hired Witanhurst, a £35m mansion overlooking London's Hampstead Heath, to house the academy and recruited a cast of voice, dance and fitness coaches. Celebrities will also give regular masterclasses.
The eventual winner, to be chosen by viewers as the cast is whittled down week by week, will be offered a package worth £100,000, including a 12-month recording contract and a luxury flat in Notting Hill.
But whatever the outlay, the rewards for those with a commercial interest in Academy's success are likely to be substantial, thanks to the use of telephone voting.
As well as having selected the 12th "student" for Academy from a shortlist of three, in last night's show, viewers will be asked to vote every Friday night to select one of the three weakest singers for rejection.
The calls will cost 10p each, representing vast sums for a show likely to be seen by at least six million people per episode. This summer's Big Brother, which attracted an average 5.7m viewers, made a profit of £20m from calls charged at 25p.
The BBC said yesterday that its 25 per cent share of the proceeds would go to the charity Children In Need.
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