this place dead

im sorry to see that no msg's have appeared since Festivus, is seinfled slowly dying? How long do you think syndication will be around? Everyone hear that Jerry Seinfeld was the top grossing entertainer last year, racking up 20million in Syndication...wow, all that for no work, thats the life! chow

In article , Tom wrote:

I too have noticed the steadily decreasing number of messages in this ng. But it is to be expected since there are no more new shows being aired any more. As far as how long Seinfeld will be syndicated, that's anyone's guess. I still catch old episodes of Bewitched, the Odd Couple, and even the Honeymooners. There is no doubt in my mind that Seinfeld has had at least as big an impact on our generation as those other shows had in theirs, so expect Seinfeld to be around a long, long time, even if this ng isn't.

-Adam

Adam Sena wrote:

That's true. All show-related newsgroups decline once that particular series ends. That's the way it is.This group seems to be one of the livelier ones of the bunch.

Try 200 mill.

Dallas

sorry typo it was 200 million ..heard it on Fortune CNN which made seinfeld the top grossing entertainer of 1998. My apologies!

Actually I thought it was quite a bit more than that. And... "no work?" I seriously doubt that that is true. Sure, he's not lifting heavy boxes or anything, but he certainly puts in far more than 40 hours and has considerable talent... thus the handsome earnings.

Take Care - Travis

The current syndication contracts run a long time. The initial round runs out this year, at the end of the summer season. The followup second round contract which Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David and Castle Rock signed in 1998 kicks in this September and covers another 5 years of replay through the summer of 2004. In almost all markets, these contracts will keep Seinfeld in place in either early prime time or fringe time (11 PM to midnight local time) on the same station where they now appear, although in Los Angeles and a very few other markets a different station gets the show starting in the fall.

Past the start of the 2004-05 season, Jerry and Larry will have to reach new agreements with stations and/or cable networks to continue the show's broadcast...at that time, the price per episode is probably going to be a lot lower than it was this time around. You'll see some stations drop it, others that continue with it will downgrade its time slot. But that's years away and the principals in the show have already been paid more handsomely than the creators and stars of any other major hit. Jerry, Larry and the Castle Rock organization split about $5 million per episode in nationwide revenue for the second-phase contract, which means they each got $300 million pre-tax total for the 180 half hours produced. They collected a large fee for the first go-round starting in 1996 as well, though the first time, it was only about $120 million each. If I could guess, even the third phase contract will pay well over $20 million more each to the creators, and then it will fall off rapidly after that, maybe with one final buyout of the rights. The other stars of the show also got handsome initial salaries, including $17 million apiece for the last season alone and $4 million apiece for each prior season...plus residuals for each replay through the duration of the 1999-2004 contract.

Incidentally, NBC's rights to run the shows of the original Seinfeld series produced between summer 1989 and spring 1998 have run out as of Labor Day. And NBC doesn't have any ownership stake in the shows or characters either, with one exception; they probably have a contractual right of first refusal to anything new Jerry and Larry do specifically for broadcast television with the characters from the original show. But NBC owns no blanket rights to the characters or the premise and format of the show. And they'll have no right to royalties from the use of the characters in other media, like theatrical films or stage plays. Jerry, Larry and Castle Rock (which is controlled by Time-Warner, even though Sony/Columbia distributed the show in syndication under license) retained those rights for themselves. Does that mean they have some further plans for those characters? Probably not yet...they're just smart business people who keep their options open in case a good idea comes up. Don't read any Seinfeld revival into it...and don't rule it out, as a one-shot TV or theatrical film several years down the road, either. (There will NOT be a revival of the full weekly series, and there will not be a new sitcom starring Jerry with a different setting and supporting cast either. He has publicly ruled that out.)

. Bob Smith, afternoons WXXI-AM 1370, Rochester NY