Deal or no deal

Pop your head around any WH Smiths and count the magazines with bright red logos / single word names / exclamation marks at the end(!). Or, indeed, combinations of the above. You'll probably give up counting after 273 or so. Hello! has a lot to answer for...

Hello! - well, it's original Spanish version Ola! - created the prototype. Fawn over celebrities, take photos of them 'in their lovely home', pay said celebrity a sum featuring many, many zeroes, sell shed loads of magazines, repeat.

And, for a long time, it's been a successful, clearly much imitated formula. There have been ups and downs, such as the prolonged Hello! vs. OK! battle over those Michael Douglas / Catherine Zeta Jones pictures and the post-Diana anti-paparrazi backlash (now THAT lasted a long time, didn't it?). There have been amusing reactions, such as Johnny Vegas selling his wedding pics to Viz for a quid. There's been speculation that it all just means we're dumbing down / going to hell in a handcart. But, generally, celebs have had their big celebrations – engagements, weddings, major birthdays, new babies, etc. – glossily documented / underwritten financially, and the masses have had pics to gawk at.

Until this week, when news reached our ears that Mariah Carey couldn't give away snaps of her planned wedding blessing.

As you may recall, the warbling Ms C and actor / rapper boyfriend Nick Cannon tied the knot in the Bahamas a couple of months ago in a small private ceremony. They subsequently decided that they should have a second, larger celebration for – probably – several, several hundred of their closest friends and relatives. After all, what glossy magazine wouldn't pay them for the exclusive coverage?

The answer, remarkably, was all of them.

According to a mystery source close to the couple, "when her people tried to deal to the celebrity magazines, they were told no every time".

Some of you may be whooping with joy, either because it's Mariah Carey or because it's clearly a sign that the backlash is starting. All this celebrity for the sake of celebrity stuff. If Mariah Carey can't pick up a deal, then surely it means that whole market is dead?

We're not so sure. There's another, much scarier scenario. Those magazine are still as interested in celebrity because their readers are just as interested in celebrity as they ever were. They just want a new angle. The readers have seen weddings, they've seen babies, they've seen birthday parties. Maybe it's time to give them something fresh.

So before you punch the air in celebration, have a think what that means. Christina Aguilera shows us round her baby's lovely circumcision? Russell Crowe reveals what's impacted in his colon? Because we all know how it's going to start, don't we?

Coming soon to Hello! Then: At home with Jordan and Peter at the conception of their new baby...