Pop Idol Gareth Gates today reassured fans he still has a big future in music, despite disappointing sales of his second album.

The 19-year-old's Go Your Own Way has slumped to No 68 in the album charts and sold just 31,500 copies since its release four weeks ago.

Gareth's debut single Unchained Melody sold almost one million copies in its first week of release in March, 2002, and his debut album sold hundreds of thousands of copies after its release in October last year.

A Gareth spokesman today denied national newspaper reports that his record company, BMG, was holding crisis talks over his future.

"The record company is happy, the management is happy and Gareth himself is happy with the way things are going at the moment," said the spokesman.

Reports suggested that BMG bosses had shelved plans for Gareth to release any more singles this year after his latest single, Sunshine, only reached No 3 in the singles chart. But the spokesman said: "Gareth is in South Africa at the moment shooting the video for his new single, Say It Isn't So, which will be released on December 1."

Gareth will start his first UK solo tour in February.

Gennaro Castaldo, head of press at HMV, said there could be a number of reasons why his second album, Go Your Own Way, had been received less well by the public than his debut album.

"There was no way his previous recording could be sustained on this album as the sales of the album were unnatural and phenomenal on the back of Pop Idol," he said. "There's huge awareness of him on the music scene and it's not as if he is an unknown.

"He looks great and sings very well. But with the market out there fans can be very fickle and people who did support Gareth can easily buy somebody else's records if they are seen as the 'new cool thing'."

Mr Castaldo said the revelations about Gareth's affair with glamour model Jordan, and his social life, may also have put some fans off the Pop Idol runner-up.

He added that Go Your Own Way's double-CD format may not have helped sales.