For our enjoyment, countless sitcoms and television programmes have been produced over the years. Others have evolved into money-making machines while others have just attracted a small fan following. The programmes that often bring in the most money have a larger audience and are available to viewers of all ages.
Even though many of these shows are no longer airing, their networks and actors continue to profit greatly from repeats and syndication fees. Additionally, other programmes like The Simpsons and Grey’s Anatomy continue to air and bring in millions of dollars.
‘Cheers’
Such items didn’t truly exist or were extremely uncommon before production corporations sold syndication rights to other networks and channels. Cheers has always been an expensive programme to produce, costing Paramount $2.2 million per episode, and its hugely popular actors, including Ted Danson, made $450,000 per episode, according to the Los Angeles Times. Even though Paramount was losing more than $25 million annually in production costs, they couldn’t afford to lose Cheers because it was NBC’s most popular and profitable show.
In 1991, NBC made an average of $330,000 from each 30-second advertisement that ran during the programme. This equated to $2.6 million every episode and brought in $115 million annually. Due to royalties and syndication earnings, the Cheers cast is still worth millions of dollars today, even after three decades.
‘Everybody Loves Raymond’
Not shortly after its CBS debut, Everybody Loves Raymond immediately rose to the top of the audience favourites list. Because of how well-liked it was, Ray Romano, the show’s star, earned an estimated $1.75 million each episode in its final two seasons. The other cast members, who had equally important roles in the show but were only paid $160,000 per episode as opposed to Romano’s enormous pay, took issue with this, though.
The actor who played Robert, Brad Garrett, and other performers who believed they were paid unfairly left the set as a result. The cast didn’t agree to return to work until after a new salary agreement was reached. And even though the programme hasn’t been on for more than 20 years, Romano is supposedly still earning $18 million annually from repeats.
‘Frasier’
A spin-off of the sitcom Cheers, Frasier Frasier follows psychiatrist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), who relocates to Seattle and starts a radio show. The programme continued for 11 seasons and became one of the most popular and lucrative spin-off shows in history (264 episodes).
A year after Frasier’s run was over, in 2005, it had made over $1.5 billion in earnings, of which $830 million came from licencing payments. To watch Frasier and other well-known CBS programmes for two years, including Cheers, Twin Peaks, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, and Family Ties, Netflix paid CBS $200 million in 2011.
‘Friends’
Friends had a 10-season run that ended in 2004, yet many people still routinely watch it and still rank it as one of the best sitcoms ever. In the first season, the stars were already making a respectable $22,500 per episode, but the show’s popularity increased those profits to $1 million per episode in the final two seasons. Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow were the highest-paid actresses at the time according to these data.
According to Forbes, the ensemble as a whole made $816 million, with the executive producers Marta Kauffman, David Crane, and Kevin S. Bright taking home at least $550 million. Since its 1994 premiere, the programme has earned an estimated $1.4 billion for its producers and actors, as well as $4.8 billion for its production firm, Warner Bros.
‘Grey’s Anatomy’
Grey’s Anatomy is the longest-running scripted medical drama series ever and the longest-running scripted primetime show on ABC, with 19 seasons and counting. It is not surprising that the billion-dollar Shondaland series is still going strong. When Patrick Dempsey was still a cast member, Ellen Pompeo and him apparently made the same amount of money, but Pompeo felt she should be paid more.
After Dempsey left the show, her pay was increased to a rumoured $575,000 per episode. Pompeo received $22 million in 2019 in addition to an extra $6–7 million in backend equity points. But considering how much Grey’s Anatomy has made for, say, Disney+ (almost $3 billion), it only seems fair that Pompeo and the rest of the cast receive millions of dollars for being the show’s headliners.
‘Modern Family’
Modern Family developed into a very popular family sitcom show over the course of 11 seasons. Cast members that were over the age of 18, like Sofia Vergara, Julie Bowen, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, made an estimated $65,000 per episode in the first season before increasing their pay to $500,000 in the final season. The rates for the younger actors, which included Rico Rodriguez, Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter, and Nolan Gould, ranged from $15,000 to $125,000 per episode.
The USA Network reportedly paid $1.8 million per episode in 2010 for the syndication rights to the programme, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The 250 episodes of the sitcom will be streamed on Hulu and NBCUniversal’s Peacock in 2021, according to the announcement.
‘Seinfeld’
Unquestionably, one of the most popular sitcoms to date is Seinfeld. Around 76.3 million viewers turned in to watch the final episode when it aired in 1998, making it the third-most-watched finale in television history, according to The New York Times. Jerry Seinfeld, the show’s co-creator and star, became the first television actor to make $1 million per episode, long before the cast of Friends did likewise in the early 2000s.
The show’s co-creators, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, initially maintained 7.5% of all revenue from syndication, streaming rights, and merchandise. But when the program’s popularity grew, they agreed to increase that amount to 15% for each. Seinfeld and David are thought to still make between $40 million and $60 million a year from the show’s reruns.
‘The Big Bang Theory’
The Big Bang Theory, the longest-running multi-camera comedy series in television history, finished its 12-season run in 2019. By the show’s later seasons, the sitcom performers reportedly made close to $1 million per episode. The show’s five major stars chose to forego $100,000 in remuneration in 2017 so that Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch, who made $100,000 instead of their $1 million each episode, would receive a pay raise.
Just from ad income, CBS was making between $125 and $150 million per season, and Warner Bros., the show’s distributor, was making $1 billion. Additionally, the cast members’ salaries would increase thanks to merchandise sales and potential syndication earnings.
‘The Simpsons’
The Simpsons has had 34 seasons and 740 episodes since it first debuted in 1989, making it the longest-running American animated series, American sitcom, and American scripted primetime television series of all time. The Simpsons, although being an animated series, employs humour to address social and political issues in both the United States and around the world.
According to Variety, Twentieth Century Fox TV and Twentieth TV sold the cartoon series to FXX and FXNow for more than $750 million in 2013, marking the first-ever cable syndication and VOD transaction. The Simpsons Movie alone brought in almost $527 million in 2007. The Simpsons would have made millions of dollars from products in addition to the television and movie business.
‘Two and a Half Men’
The CBS comedy Two and a Half Men ran for 12 seasons, from 2003 to 2015. For the majority of the series, Charlie Sheen performed the lead role, but his contract was terminated after he entered rehab and made disparaging remarks about Chuck Lorre, the show’s creator. After this incident, Ashton Kutcher took Sheen’s position on the show.
In the series’ latter seasons, Sheen was paid $1.8 million per episode, while Kutcher received less than half that amount, $700,000. Regarding the programme itself, in 2011 (the eighth season), CBS was charging $200,000 for 30-second ad slots, resulting in a season-total ad revenue of $155 million.
