A version of the New Zealand television programme that produced pop band TrueBliss has proved a television success story in Britain with 11 million viewers seeing the final.
Popstars ended on ITV with Myleene Klass, 22, Kym Marsh, 24, Suzanne Shaw, 19, Danny Foster, 21, and Noel Sullivan, 20, being picked
for a manufactured pop band.
Cast-offs from the show have targeted chief judge "Nasty" Nigel Lythgoe with threats and bribes.
The five were picked from more than 3000 candidates over a series of shows that have turned Lythgoe into a minor celebrity.
As with TrueBliss, a No 1 hit seems assured when the band, provisionally called Inner Spin, release their first single on March 12.
Industry commentators believe that Myleene, Kym, Suzanne, Danny and Noel may become as well known as the Spice Girls.
The debut single, possibly a version of Pure and Simple, released last year by female band Girl Thing, will be a hit if even a small proportion of the television audience buys it.
Band members have each received an advance fee of £40,000 ($NZ133,800) and are getting £500 a week in expenses from the record company Polydor.
That sort of support would have been true bliss for the New Zealand band, who cried poverty before breaking up late last year.
"Now they are in the band they won't go without," said a spokesman for the British show.
Even rejects have become part of the soap opera of the show.
During the elimination rounds Darius Danesh, a 20-year-old Glaswegian, wooed some record companies, if not Lythgoe.
"My singing voice is a gift. It would be unfair not to share it with the rest of the world," Danesh said. Lythgoe disagreed. Danesh was dropped.
He has had meetings with EMI, Parlophone and Universal and tried to get revenge by selling early the names of the winners to journalists.
ITV has a stake in the success of the group and will earn a percentage from records released.
- NZPA
