Richard Littlecock, superstar

Richard Littlecock's move from the Sun to the Mail is likely to cement his position as Britain's best-paid newspaper columnist; he's reputed to have been on £350,000 a year at the Sun - 11 times what the average journalist is paid.
This is an example of superstar economics, pointed out by Sherwin Rosen in the early 80s - the process  whereby tiny superiorities in ability lead to huge differences in salary.
The ability that matters here is not the skill to produce well-written right-wing bile. Loads of people can do that.
Instead, the difference between Littlecock and those guys - at least in the opinion of the Mail which is what counts - is that he can deliver readers.  And it only takes a small ability to do this to warrant a big income. If Littlecock's two columns a week attract - say - 40,000 extra readers (an increase of only 1.7 per cent) then if these generate an extra 10p each of net income for the Mail, he'll be worth a wage of £8000 a week.
So, what is it about Littlecock-type ability that generates such rewards?
The key feature is that his services are easily duplicable. Once he's written an article, it can be distributed relatively cheaply to millions of people; Littlecock can, in effect, duplicate himself and serve millions of clients. This is why you get "superstar economics" in entertainment or sports but not medicine; the best doctor in the world can (for now) only perform a limited number of operations. That limits his income.
A second feature, said Rosen, was that average ability was a poor substitute for high ability. This explains superstar salaries in sport; an average striker is a poor substitute for Thierry Henry, because Thierry's superior ability leads to much greater on-field success.
I'm not sure, though, that this explains  income differences in media or music. No-one  thinks the callipygous J-Lo (why does writing about Littlecock make me think of arses?) is a better singer than, say, Kate Campbell. What J-Lo  has is greater brand recognition - just as Littlecock has greater brand recognition than, say, Peter Briffa. It's this - not writing or singing talent per se - that generates income.
Now, here are my questions. One is: how do people convert ability into brand recognition? Secondly, is technical change really increasing the importance of superstar economics? Or will the rise of blogging eventually reduce the earnings of people like Littlecock, by allowing his potential competitors to develop brand recognition which they can sell to the old meeja. Here's hoping...

Comments

[Chris]

Super stars are super stars where-ever they appear & therefore some of us are loyal readers of you! Blog readers have to locate somewhere; where better than mixing in the intellectual common room that blogs appear to offer?

[dearieme]

Gosh: the bottom of the top 10 gets only four times the pay of the top of the bottom 10. That's more egalitarian than I'd have guessed. Should I believe these numbers?

[dearieme]

Thinks: the top 10 types probably have distributions of pay with long tails to the right; there is no obvious maximum. The bottom 10s meet a minimum wage at the left of their distributions and are probably limited to the right by their ability to move up to the next rank: these jobs are rather unspecialised. So would it look even more egalitarian if they reported medians?

[dearieme]

And they are GROSS salaries, and salaries alone: no benefits. If reported net of tax & benefits, would they be even more egalitarian (and if not, why not?).

[The Unknown Professor]

Dearieme:
My sense (at least from what I know of the literature on executive compensation) is that the distribution would be even more skewed if we included benefits into the analysis. The reported compensation also may not include deferred compensation.

[dearieme]

Unk Prof: thanks - it seems that I should not believe these numbers.

[James Hamilton]

Blimpish? Bile? Mind you, I wouldn't rule out him being rather flattered by the association..

[Blimpish]

James, I'm bowled over... made up... other positives!

[Peter Briffa]

And I've got a nicer butt than Mr. Littlejohn. Or so I've been told.

[Blimpish]

Peter got Back?

[Laban Tall]

Ijust hope the Mail makie his columns avaiable online - but probably not, if Peter Hitchens is any example.

Time was when Mr Briffa and I would quote him every other day.

[rjw]

nice post; excellent book on this type of phenomenon is Frank and Cook's "winner takes all markets"; extends the analysis to a range of areas

[Andy Cooke]

Mr Littlewhatsit's replacement (at least for today) appears to be Boris.