TV popstars favourite to top UK charts

Spice Girls: began as unknowns

LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) -- The band has no name and its lineup remains secret. Yet bets are already on that Britain's newest pop creation will go on to top the charts after its launch.

The mystery group is the product of a hit television series that has seen thousands of young pop hopefuls sing, dance and sweat their way through gruelling heats in a bid to make it big.

The five winners who will form the new band were being announced on Saturday, when "Popstars" ended its six-week run and a new Fab Five was born.

Pop pundits expect the band to have something of the Spice Girls' magic, but the newcomers will also fuel debate about the way impresarios manufacture bands as much by hair colour as talent.

It was the Spice Girls, after all, who began life as unknowns when they answered an advert in a stage magazine looking for members to join a made-up group.

The ITV programme began with 3,000 wannabes, some painfully amateurish, desperate to fulfil their pop fantasies with a £100,000 ($140,000) record contract and a place in the final lineup.

The show's judges, one labelled "Nasty Nigel" for his cutting criticism, will visit the homes of the 10 hopefuls and reveal which five have made the final cut.

Bookmakers are already betting the group will top the charts with their first single, expected in March. The first live performance of the single is scheduled for February 26.

But even the five who don't make the band could be snapped up by record companies keen to cash in.

The losing five -- whoever they are -- are already being eyed by record labels.

"I'm after the five rejects -- I'll get them a record deal within minutes," Paul Coussins of Recording Artists Management told London's Evening Standard newspaper. "I am already in conversation with three of the major record labels."

The 10 finalists range from 18 to 24 years in age, and include a former fishmonger, a mother of two and a pianist who has toured with Cliff Richard.

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ITV
Spice Girls

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