How much does Friends earn TimeWarner?

How much does Friends earn Time, Warner, AOL, I think they also own Viacom (which owns Paramount and Villiage Roadshow?) and BlockBuster Video/Music etc. I dont knwo what they call themselves anymore. On average per episode, including distrbution and merchandise how much do they make? That way we can see how much the characters are worth. Just thought that it might be interesting. Cheers, Anthony

Here's my feeble estimation:

For Warner Brothers:

5 million a new ep from NBC times 24 = 120 million dollars 4 million an ep in syndication times 5 five seasons times 24 eps plus 1 extra episode from season three = 484 million dollars T-Shirts, CDs, Calendars, etc. = 10 million dollars

Total: 614 million dollars

Note: this is just the US, who knows how much the show is worth world-wide.

And NBC gets about 400,000 for every thirty-second spot. So times that with 16 spots times 24 eps== 6.4 million times 24 = almost 150 million dollars. And don't include the extra money the show generates for the other NBC shows coming after Friends.

If the cast wants 600000 an ep as rumoured, that would be 600000 times 24 episodes = 14.4 million dollars a year.

times that by 6 and you get = 86.4 million dollars for the cast.

That means that the whole cast gets about 15% of the WB pie. I think the cast is worth at least 15% of the show, no?

Lewis.

Also don't forget reruns. That's probably another 50-75 million for NBC. And they probably got more since NBC is starting to air Friends reruns in other days of the week.

Lewis.