Instant pop idols embark on their new lives

And they call themselves pop stars! After 20 weeks of casting aside hundreds of once-hopeful rivals to win the Pop Idol contest, Will Young held a party that ended without a hotel room trashed or a television flung from a window, let alone a police inquiry.

Perhaps that was the inevitable result of a politics graduate – whose ideal date is the Queen – winning the hugely popular television talent show and becoming the most marketable figure in British pop. Now the carve-up begins.

Management, record label and production companies will rake in fortunes; Young's cut will be considerably smaller.

After Saturday night when a "lot of champagne was drunk" – unsurprisingly for a middle-class boy from Berkshire – Young, 23, was whisked away for the start of the publicity campaign that will almost certainly lead to a number one in the charts.

He will film the video for the debut single, the double A-sided "Evergreen" and "Anything is Possible", this week before returning to the studio to record his album. It is due to be released on 25 February with the run-up marked by a flurry of television and radio appearances.

If weeks of exposure were not enough, two days before the launch he will appear with the other nine finalists on a new edition of Pop Idol to talk about his hopes for stardom.

He has already joined Robbie Williams as the joint favourite to top the charts this Christmas at 8-1, according to the bookmaker Coral.

The narrowly defeated runner-up and pre-show favourite Gareth Gates, 17, who has also been given a recording contract, has been quoted at 10-1 to achieve the top spot, the same odds as the previous favourite of teenage girls, Westlife.

David Stevens, a spokesman for Coral, said: "These odds show that the two Pop Idol stars are going to be immediate rivals to the established names of pop."

Young, from Hungerford, received 4.6 million of the 8.7 million votes to win the talent show on Saturday. "I just cannot get my head round it to be honest," he said. "I am absolutely ecstatic. It's something I have always wanted to do and throughout this competition it's just felt more and more right to sing. I am really ready for it."

A spokeswoman for the television show said: "Will is going to be a very busy boy. His life will never be the same again." After Saturday's show, Young and Gates, from Bradford, joined the other eight finalists for a party at the television studios in South Bank, London. The celebrations continued at the Marriott Hotel in Maida Vale, north London, home to the finalists near the end of the show's 18-week run.

A hotel employee said: "Will and his family were clearly enjoying themselves. A lot of champagne was drunk."

Young's father, Robin, 51, a director of an engineering firm, said: "We're very proud. There are no losers, they are both winners. I thought the pair of them were brilliant."

Gates, a former cathedral choirboy, had gone into the final as the bookies' 2-7 favourite after winning the nation's hearts with his struggle to overcome a stammer throughout the contest.