A theme of the autumn was Huge Salaries. Like giant hissing cockroaches they fascinate and repel. It is easy to grasp the idea of fortunes made by starting and selling a business: the weirdness begins when that familiar object, a pay packet, is inflated to insanity. I am always reminded of that nasty phenomenon the neotenous tadpole: instead of developing frog legs the small wriggling comma keeps growing until it is just a huge bloated head and lashing tail as long as your hand. Proper frogs wisely avoid it.

We have been long aware of mad City pay. Last year one FTSE 100 director earned £23 million. Meanwhile, our Prime Minister is the best-paid national leader in Europe at a mere £187,000, whereas running the BBC - which doesn't usually involve declaring wars or controlling terrorism - brings 50 of its executives more than that. Even so its Director General, at £800,000, lags behind such chattering employees as Moyles, Norton and the £6 million Jonathan Ross. Other channels pay similarly huge amounts.

Most of us find it hard to work out what on earth we would do with multiple millions rolling in year after year. Once you have a nice home or two, maybe a boat and horse and school fees and enough to help your relatives and fund a pension, you've probably only got through a couple of years' earnings. So we reserve envy for those on more conceivable emoluments, like £250,000, a sum that would make a FTSE behemoth or groin-obsessed DJ faint like a Victorian maiden aunt receiving a rude proposition.

We may also pity the super-paid for defining themselves by money: best recession story I heard was from a headhunter who approached a finance man for a million-quid public job to be told: “Look, I'm a ten-million-a-year man.” The funny bit is that after Lehman went down, he came back to the headhunter feigning sudden interest. And joined the queue.

But never mind the City. The interesting development is in media: we have had Carol Vorderman's “90 per cent pay cut” from her Channel 4 million and Michael Grade's admission that ITV “talent” costs are under tight scrutiny, so Ant and Dec's £15 million a year may not be, ahem, a permanent arrangement. And now the Controller of BBC1, Jay Hunt, says: “The climate around those sorts of deals has changed... in talent negotiations generally we're in a better position than we've been... the world is a different place.”

Well, let me tell you a secret. It isn't. It never was that other place, that cloudy Shangri-La where talent must be paid in telephone numbers lest it shrivel or defect. It is fairly understandable that men in city suits define their worth in useless millions; after all, as Nancy Mitford's Uncle Matthew shuddered, they use up their lives “messing about with other chaps' money all day, indoors”. But showbiz jobs are different. They may involve long hours, but as Noël Coward said: ‘Work is more fun than fun.” They bring their own reward: audiences' affection, laughter, lightning-witted camaraderie, meetings with amusing (or interestingly horrifying) celebrities. There is a daily buzz in having created something, even just a good atmosphere or a good joke.

In theatre, art and music, people put up with abominably low pay and consequent anxiety for just this reason. That is bad: arts pay should be better than it is, and tax treatment kinder. But in broadcasting - and rare corners of journalism - the opposite happens. Crazy millions are lavished on a few people who would probably do it for a tenth of the money. They might ask silly money for adverts or corporate gigs, but their main job is a joy.

They don't do it for the money - at least not for the top 70 per cent of it. And if a move to another channel means losing a production team they spark with, they won't go. When they do, they often decline in performance and popularity: leaving the BBC did no favours for Morecambe and Wise, Harry Enfield in his satellite interlude or Des Lynam. A media job that works is not something to abandon out of greed or pique. The excellent Kevin Whately, who as Inspector Lewis gives ITV a vast 32 per cent audience share, recently said he doesn't want a rise. “They pay me royally. I'm not interested in more money for the sake of it. You're very aware that if you're nicking all the budget somebody else is getting threepence ha'penny, or the production values aren't going to be so high.” He is not unique in this feeling, only in his honesty and apparent willingness to annoy his agent.

So why did they develop, the mad salaries that Hunt and Grade and Andy Duncan at C4 now refute? Several reasons. One is a cowardly fear that “stars” are irreplaceable. This is rubbish: what anxious executives fail to grasp is that exposure itself, almost as much as talent, makes TV and radio legends. Ever since my children grew up and I got out more, I have noticed that below the TV radar in clubs and fringe shows there are dozens of clever, creative, likeable personalities who could be groomed for the air. Easily.

This unconfidence is one reason. Another may be nastier. TV executives, aware of the ephemeral frivolity of much of their product, may feel uneasy about their own high salaries. Compare Andy Duncan with Reichschancellor Merkel and observe that it is five times more profitable to run Channel 4 - average daily reach 12 million - than to lead Germany - population 83 million. One way to alleviate that unease is to pretend to be a vital industry. The quickest way to do that is not to pay your lowly researchers and runners properly - they don't - but to trumpet mad signings of “top talent” as titanic victories.

It's been a con trick. To be fair, it wasn't performers who did the pushing but agents, in cahoots with TV executives to convince themselves that they are all Big Players. If the balloon is now deflating with an embarrassed hiss, rejoice. Because creative, amusing, informative people mainly want to create and amuse and inform. Pay them enough to keep their families secure, treat them nicely, and they'll keep doing it. Even I - no millionaire - have to admit that if The Times and Radio 4 fell on hard times and trimmed the money a bit, I'd probably swallow my pride and opt to stay in the national conversation. Damn! Shouldn't have said that. But it's true.

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