Cowell in Royal 'Talent' prize confusion

Simon Cowell's prize to the winner of Britain's Got Talent of a slot at the Royal Variety Performance has been thrown into doubt.

BBC bosses are refusing to promise to allow the winner of next year's show to appear when the programme switches from ITV1 in 2008.

Applicants for the talent show were told that they could play in front of the Royal Family, which many presumed to be a place on the Royal Variety show.

However, according to The Sun, nobody at Cowell's production company Syco or ITV has contacted the BBC to request whether the winner can appear on next year's bill.

An insider commented: "I would be very surprised if we let the winner of one of ITV’s most popular shows take pride of place on BBC1."

An ITV source said: "There’s a meeting in the diary to talk about this with the BBC. It would be silly of them to turn this down as we’ll effectively be promoting their show."

This year's Royal Variety Performance will see last year's Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts perform in front of the Queen and Prince Philip at The Empire Theatre in Liverpool.