The Big Boon in TV Star Salaries
Who’s Making What Might Surprise You (Or Not)
Enough about this week’s upfronts already! Let’s talk money, nearly everyone’s favorite subject, for a little while.
Darn—I knew I should have been a TV star. According to a recent (at least when I originally wrote this piece—I had a feeling it would come in handy some day) thought-provoking article in Entertainment Weekly, television is where all the money is these days … if you’re an A-list or almost A-list thespian who knows how to get your agent to play your clout cards right. Although celebrity salaries can prove notoriously secret in the small-screen world, the proof is in some of the (near) facts that the intrepid reporters at EW managed to verify.
For example, Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni, the stars of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the most popular Law & Order spinoff, reportedly wrangled big bucks to the tune of $300,000 per episode out of their NBC bosses not too long ago. While this pay raise fell far short of the $600,000 they were each allegedly gunning for, them bucks still ain’t bad at all.
Neither are the $250,000 big ones that Kyra Sedgwick, star of TNT’s two-seasons-old hit crime drama The Closer, will earn upon the return of her Golden Globe-winning series on June 18. Sedgwick’s salary is all the sweeter because her show dominates in the historically lower-paying realm of basic cable.
No matter how you analyze the figures, though, comedy clearly rules when it comes to maximum moolah for your time invested. With episodes clocking in at under thirty minutes (don’t forget to exclude those niggling commercials), Ray Romano of Everybody Loves Raymond, Tim Allen of Home Improvement, Jerry Seinfeld of Seinfeld, and Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer of Friends all managed to pull in a whopping million or more for each single installment of their show at one time or another. Not the entire season, mind you—one episode. How unbelievable is that? Methinks very.
Herewith, a list of past, present, and future TV-star salaries to die for—provided that they’re true:
- Ray Romano of Everybody Loves Raymond on CBS: $1,800,000 per episode in 2003
- Tim Allen of Home Improvement on ABC: $1,250,000 per episode
- Jerry Seinfeld of Seinfeld on NBC: $1,000,000+ per episode
Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer of Friends on NBC: $1,000,000 per episode in 2002 - James Gandolfini of The Sopranos on HBO: $800,000 per episode
- Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards of Seinfeld on NBC: $600,000 per episode
- William Petersen of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS: $500,000+ per episode
- Kevin James of the outgoing The King of Queens on CBS: $400,000+ per episode
Kiefer Sutherland of 24 on Fox: $400,000 per episode - Charlie Sheen of Two and a Half Men on CBS: $350,000 per episode
Zach Braff of Scrubs on NBC: $350,000 per episode for the just-confirmed seventh season - Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on NBC: $300,000 per episode for Season Nine
- Simon Cowell of American Idol on Fox: $263,000 per episode, and he doesn’t even really do anything besides scowl and hurl insults!
- Kyra Sedgwick of The Closer on TNT: $250,000 per episode for the forthcoming third season
- Brad Garrett of the recently renewed ‘Til Death on Fox: $200,000 per episode
- Steve Carell of The Office on NBC: $175,000 per episode
Oscar winner Marisa Tomei of the projected sitcom The Rich Inner Life of Penelope Cloud on CBS (although this may not still hold true given that CBS didn’t include the show in its recent upfront presentation): $175,000 per episode
Friends photo courtesy of NBC
