This last Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones was watched live by around 10.2 million viewers. The seventh season finale of The Walking Dead was seen by 11 million live viewers. This Is Us is the highest rated show on broadcast television, and its first season finale scored around 12 million live viewers.
Those numbers are impressive, but they’re not as impressive as the fact that Judge Judy is seen by 10 million viewers. A day. 260 days a year. It’s the top rated syndicated show on television, and it has been for 8 years running. That’s why Judge Judith Sheindlin earns $45 million a year despite only working 5 days a month (meaning she earns $865,000 every day she works). And you know what?
She is worth every penny.
Why? Because the show that is seen by 10 million viewers every weekday also generates nearly $250 million in ad revenue for CBS. Compare that to the leader in advertising revenue in late night, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, which generates around $196 million in ad revenue. There’s a reason that Judy Sheindlin earns $30 million a more per year than Jimmy Fallon.
And the thing is: She could make more.
Sheindlin is currently involved in a legal dispute between CBS and talent agency Rebel Entertainment Partners over the agency’s share of profits. Rebel wants more; CBS (and Sheindlin) think they’ve earned enough, what with the fact that Rebel had no actual involvement in the creation of the show, according to CBS. Sheindlin agrees, asserting that Rebel should be thankful they received any money at all, because she could leave CBS if she felt like it, and that would leave Rebel with nothing.
“CBS had no choice but to pay me what I wanted, because otherwise I could take it wherever I wanted to take it, or do it myself,” she said, according to a transcript obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.
“Mr. Lawrence should actually be kissing this right in Macy’s window, because my contract with CBS for more than a decade now does not include a last look which means … they can’t match another offer, which means I can produce this show myself for decades.” Sheindlin said that she could make as much as $20 million more a year if she produced the show herself, but she feels she has enough money as it is. “How much can you eat?” said Sheindlin, who also just inked a deal with CBS to sell them her TV library for $95 million.
Moreover, according to the transcript, her annual salary negotiations over dinner with the CBS President aren’t a negotiation at all. Judge Judy asks, and she receives. “I hand him the envelope and I say, ‘Don’t read it now, let’s have a nice dinner. Call me tomorrow. You want it, fine. Otherwise, I’ll produce it myself.’
In other words, Judge Judy is as no-nonsense in her contract negotiations as she is in the courtroom.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
