LILY ALLEN, the outspoken pop singer, is to become the new face of BBC3, the youth channel, with her first television chat show.

Allen, 22, is due to film a pilot programme on Wednesday for the new series, which will start next month. Guests will include Alex James, the former bass player from Blur, and Alan Davies, the actor who drunkenly bit a tramp’s ear last month.

It emerged on Friday that Allen had suffered a miscarriage after a holiday in the Maldives with her boyfriend Ed Simons, 37, from the band the Chemical Brothers. However, she is expected to go ahead with the show despite her distress.

As part of a shake-up of the channel, which has been criticised for bad taste, Danny Cohen, its controller, is likely to do away with shows such as My Penis and Everyone Else’s.

The new strategy coincides with the launch of a review of programming for children and young adults by the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body. By signing up Allen, Cohen signals his willingness to continue to take risks.

Until she became pregnant, Allen enjoyed a party-fuelled lifestyle and described George W Bush as a “f****** c***” during a performance at last year’s V festival.

The singer’s chat show, Lily Allen and Friends, will capitalise on the social networking phenomenon that shot her to fame after she posted songs on her MySpace page.

Viewers will be invited to become Allen’s virtual “friends” by subscribing to a website. This will allow them to choose questions for Allen to put to guests.

BBC3 is aimed at the 16-34 age group and has an annual programming budget of £93m. Although it has had successes, such as Little Britain, critics have questioned its public service role after a string of provocatively titled shows.

These included F*** Off, I’m a Hairy Woman, a programme about society’s obsession with women being hair-free, presented by Shazia Mirza, the Muslim stand-up comedian.

With the BBC facing a £2 billion funding shortfall, some senior broadcasters, such as John Humphrys, have called for BBC3 to be axed.

But last week Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, appeared to defend the channel. He said: “What the BBC offers young people has sometimes been the object of harsh criticism - not always well informed and sometimes voiced by commentators well past the first flush of youth.”

The BBC is expected to reveal two new cases this week of the results of phone-in competitions being rigged. Disciplinary action has already been taken against staff on at least one of the shows involved.

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