Susan Boyle looks to the future despite defeat  

LONDON - Unlikely Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle was plotting her future Sunday after her shock defeat in the "Britain's Got Talent" television show which made her a worldwide star thanks to the Internet.
Boyle, a frumpy, 48-year-old church volunteer, will reportedly earn up to eight million pounds (nine million euros, 13 million dollars) in the next year from a record deal, book about her life and even a film.
She is set to start rehearsing for an album of showtunes this week and will fly to Prague next month for recording sessions with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, British media said.
Boyle's career looks likely to reach new heights even though she lost to the multi-ethnic street dancers Diversity in a public vote of one million viewers after the talent show final late Saturday.
Despite winning praise from the audience and the judges in her last performance on live television, Boyle was forced into second place, saying the "best people won" and wishing the dance troupe winners "all the best".
Boyle enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame over the past two months after video footage of her audition piece for the show, "I Dreamed A Dream" from the musical "Les Miserables", was posted on YouTube.
It has had at least 100 million hits and brought her celebrity fans including actress Demi Moore and rock star Jon Bon Jovi, who embraced the dowdy spinster from small-town Scotland with a voice worthy of Broadway.
Bookmakers made her the favourite to win, but after an unconvincing semi-final performance, there were fears that Boyle, who was starved of oxygen at birth and has mild learning difficulties, was suffering under the pressure.
She was spoken to by police after an outburst at the London hotel where she was staying, while "Britain's Got Talent" judge Piers Morgan described her as "a frightened rabbit in headlights" and said she considered quitting.
In a live performance in the "Britain's Got Talent" final Saturday, though, Boyle proved the critics wrong and repeated her audition piece with gusto.
Judge Amanda Holden said after the performance: "I have never heard such powerful, confident vocals."
Following her performance, Boyle -- wearing a grey-blue, long sequined dress -- gushed appreciation for her worldwide fan base.
"I want to thank people for all the support they've given me," she said.
Asked if it was worth all the media pressure, she replied: "Well worth it!... I really feel at home on stage, I'm among friends."
As for her future plans, Boyle added: "I hope to get an album out -- I'll just play it by ear. What a journey -- unbelievable, and very humbling. Thank you for everything."
Simon Cowell, one of the show's judges and its mastermind, said he had high hopes for Boyle.
"It's the biggest phenomenon I've ever seen out of any of my shows," Cowell, who is also a judge on "American Idol", told the News of the World newspaper.
Boyle's performance was watched by hundreds of fans in her home town of Blackburn, outside Edinburgh, where she lives in social housing with only her cat Pebbles for company.
"She told me that after the final, she wants to come back and resume her previous life," one of Boyle's neighbours, 24-year-old housewife Vicky McLean told the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
"She doesn't want to make millions and go to America, she just wants to sing. I think all she really hopes to have out of it is enough money to buy her house."
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