Media editors are scratching their heads trying to work out just how much celebrity “news” people want or need. The answer, it seems, is “a lot”.

Rebekah Wade, editor of Britain’s top-selling daily tabloid the Sun, revealed this week that her ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch, was “dismayed” at how many column inches the newspaper devoted to showbiz coverage, including reality TV shows like Big Brother. That did not prevent the Sun running a “world exclusive” on the same day Wade made those remarks which reported on Britney Spears’s alleged “suicide note”.

Spears is also big news for more “high-brow” news outlets. Reuters, for one, has treated her custody battle and personal problems as a real news story, and the Associated Press recently said in an internal memo: “virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal”. The AP also plans to add 22 positions to expand its entertainment coverage, some of which will be filled by staff currently in other areas of news, according to recent media reports.

Commentators have long predicted the dawn of celebrity overload, the backlash that would see the world grow tired of the private lives of the famous, of what designer their dogs like best, of where they went for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

But there is little sign of it just yet.