Cutting your own throat for fun and profit
I love this article because either the person who wrote it is oblivious to the irony or they are very clever indeed. There is an interesting parallel between the top salaries of actors on a TV show and when those shows entered their final season. Of course, most shows don’t end until the ratings drop or they go for so long that one of the primary actors doesn’t want to do it anymore.
The funny thing about Hollywood is that people rarely ask what their talent is worth, but rather try to get what they can regardless of the long term outcome. Nevermind that asking for more money might just be another nail in the coffin. It reminds me a little too much of the dotcom days when programmers with little experience and dubious qualifications could ask for outrageous amounts of money, and would often get it. I’m sure we all remember how that turned out, right?
I read constant complaints from the industry about how expensive it is to make movies or television shows anymore. Well sure, if you’re paying anyone a million per episode that incurs quite a cost right there. If you’re largest expense is paying your stars, that’s your problem right there.
Who am I supposed to feel sorry for anyway? If you get even $100,000 per episode that is still going to be around $2.6 million per year. Not bad money for any line of work. I don’t doubt that people in entertainment work hard, but how exactly do they justify that kind of pay? How many people would accept so much less to basically work in a fantasy all day?
At the end of the day I don’t care how much the industry pays, but I’m pretty deaf to their cries of high production costs. I’m also pretty deaf to actor’s complaining about only making a paltry million per year when their are starving actors out there more than happy to fill in for them. I’m also pretty unsympathetic to actor’s who demand outrageous salaries and then find themselves out of work.
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October 5th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
What always interests me about these reports is the advertising dollars the networks charge in order to to be able to pay these actors such a handsome sum. They certainly aren’t going to hurt their profits to pay these salaries.
How much was NBC raking on Friends, merchandising and advertising to have some suit say “Well, I guess we can pay you one million cash per episode” Thats was what, $6,000,000.00 a week? $156,000,000 for the season?
I can’t see the fussing and complaining. You act, pretend to be another person during the day and you earn a wage, when broken down, probably averages a lot of people’s daily wage per minute of work.
Honestly, what are they going to do once you reach that point? Quit?
Ray Romano earned $2,000,000 per episode. He could be funny, but $52,000,000 funny a season funny?
I listen to people go ape over Superbowl commercial prices, but what was Coke and Pepsi paying for their commercials during the season of Fraiser? I can understand why they ask for it, God only know what NBC made off the Friends DVD sets alone, but acting like you are entitled is going bananas
I wonder what the writers for the episodes made? would be an interesting comparison.