The Spice Girls stand to make over £1 million an hour performing in cyberspace. The figure came from today's Daily Mail, which revealed the group signed an exclusive three-year deal to perform a series of shows online for subscribers.

The paper worked out that, in theory, if 10 million people paid £10 to watch Sporty, Scary, Baby and Posh strut their stuff, £100 million would be made from one concert. Even if the Spices took just half that cash they'd end up with £12.5 million each – not bad for a night's work. Probably just about enough to buy a new diamond-encrusted bottle-holder for baby Brooklyn.

And it's not an impossible figure, considering that millions of fans paid to watch and listen online to the show given by Jean-Michel Jarre from Egypt on New Year's Eve. The concert was staged by the same company the Spice Girls have signed up with – cyberconcerts.

This on-line music venture is run by ex-Pink Floyd manager Mark Morrison and TV producer Mike Mansfield. "We have to sit down with the Spice Girls and work out where we will do our first show with them, but it won't be until 2001," said Morrison. ®