Just 13 students will enter the Fame Academy

On the opening night of the second series of the BBC One show there was an upset as judges' favourite LaDonna Harley-Peters failed to impress viewers.

She missed out on one of the 13 places in the academy, the first four of which went to Alistair Griffin, Carolynne Good, Gary Phelan and Louise Griffiths - the girlfriend of Formula One racing driver Jenson Button.

The triumphant students enter the academy on 6 August.

The eventual winner will win a lucrative recording contract and get to live the life of a pop star for a year.

Idol overlap

The youngest contestants this year, Andrea Magee, from Glengormley, Belfast, and Alex Parks, from Truro, Cornwall, who are both 18, will perform on next Saturday's show.

The eldest is 31-year-old Audley Anderson, from Thornton Heath, south London.

But the show lost out in the ratings, as it gears up for what is likely to be a bruising battle for Saturday night supremacy with ITV1's Pop Idol next month.

Some 4.2m people watched the first programme, compared with 4.9m for the film Twister on ITV1, according to unofficial overnight statistics.

The first four Alistair Griffin, 25, from Whitby, a songwriter and busker Carolynne Good, 22, from Leeds, rock vocalist and songwriter Gary Phelan, 20, from Newcastle, a guitarist and songwriter Louise Griffiths, 25, from Herts, a pop singer-songwriter

Fame Academy has been moved from Friday to Saturday for this year's run - the same night as Pop Idol.

ITV1 was reportedly due to schow Pop Idol from 9 August at 1900 - clashing with all but the first half hour of Fame Academy.

But the final scheduling for Pop Idol will not be confirmed until later this week.

The top five students from the inaugural Fame Academy - David Sneddon, Sinead Quinn, Lemar Obika, Malachi Cush and Ainslie Henderson - have all since signed record deals.

The first series, the latest in a line of TV talent shows, got off to a bad start when it was dubbed "Lame Academy" by critics.

But ratings did pick up, with 6.9 million voting in the finale, which was eventually won by Sneddon.

The lucky contestants will stay in a luxury mansion in north London where they will taught essential skills required to break into the recording industry.

Each week three students are put on "probation" and must sing in a live televised show, with the public deciding who should be kicked out.