In the UK it is very clear that the Britains Got Talent, X-Factor etc are built heavily towards ending with a SINGER/MUSICIAN as the winner, because the whole point is to have a RECORD CONTRACT at the end that the tv bosses can make loads of money from. I saw an interview recently with a magician talking about his experience with those shows and he said at the start all of the contestants basically had to sign a... you guessed it.... record contract. So it is in fact known ahead of time that the winner is going to be one of the singers. This may not be the case with all talent shows but I'm pretty sure it is with at least one or two of them.
A magician who wins a show like that wont earn the makers of the show much money after the fact. It's not so easy to sign a magician up to some sort of contract unless you own a big casino in Vegas, or something similar (see Fool Us). So in the UK at least it simply would make no sense to award the main prize to a magician, because the money flow would end there. Sure the magician would go on to make LOADS for himself, but the tv talent show bosses (Simon Cowell) would get none of it. It's actually about business first, not talent, unfortunately.
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