Here’s How Much Actors Really Get Paid for Reruns, Ranked From Least to Most

Many stars from famous shows never made a penny from reruns. Jackie Gleason of The Honeymooners, Maureen McCormick of The Brady Bunch, Michael J. Fox of Family Ties, Sir Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: TNG, and Fred Savage of The Wonder Years never made a single cent from their shows being repeated worldwide.

But it’s not just old shows that don’t pay their stars residuals — Glee’s Lea Michele, The Good Place’s Kristen Bell, Pretty Little Liars’ Shay Mitchell, and The Crown’s Claire Foy also never earned a dime from reruns.

Carol Burnett changed comedy forever. Her variety/sketch comedy show, The Carol Burnett Show, which ran on CBS from 1967 to 1978, was ground-breaking as a comedienne was the host. Millions of fans tuned in weekly to see a range of comedy characters, skits, and sketches.

But what thanks did Carol get for changing comedy? To this day, the nonagenarian earns an insulting one cent from DVD sales of her show because of music copyright laws.

Native American comedian, actor, and writer Jana Schmieding is best known for playing Bev on Taika Waititi’s Reservation Dogs, writing and acting on the sitcom Rutherford Falls, and hosting the Woman of Size podcast. But in 2023, the Lakota actress tweeted the following:

“To fans of my character Bev on Reservation Dogs, here’s a peek behind the IHS counter at what part of my residuals looks like for acting on a show that I love. I pull in $.03 each quarter for unlimited worldwide streams on FX /Hulu/Disney.”

Breaking Bad and its spin-off, Better Call Saul, are two of the best TV shows ever made. While stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul made oodles, Aaron explained from the SAG-AFTRA Strike, “I don’t get a piece from Netflix on Breaking Bad… to be totally honest, and that’s insane to me.”

He continued, “I think a lot of these streamers know that they have been getting away with not paying people a fair wage, and now it’s time to pony up.” Hollywood eventually paid up.

William Stanford Davis plays Mr. Johnson in ABC’s school-based mockumentary sitcom Abbott Elementary. The film follows the exploits of staff and kids at a predominantly African-American Philadelphia school. Davis took to Instagram in July 2023 to tell the world he once received a check for 5 cents.

“The postage, the paper, everything costs more than that. That’s what they think of us as actors. This is why we’re on strike for better wages, for better residuals [and] for a piece of the subscription.”

Dan Fogelman’s Emmy Award-winning This Is Us was one of the biggest shows of the late 2010s and early 2020s. It starred a slew of household names — including Milo Ventimiglia, Sterling K. Brown, and Mandy Moore. The show streamed on Netflix, so its stars must have made loads of money, right? Wrong!

Mandy Moore once received a check for 81 cents for streaming residuals of This Is Us. No wonder writers and actors went on strike for their fair share of residuals in 2023!

Netflix’s OITNB was based on Piper Kerman’s memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, which is about her stay in FCI Danbury, a minimum security women’s prison in Connecticut. The drama-comedy was a massive hit between 2013 and 2019 and had a budget of $4 million per episode.

Inspired by 2023’s strikes, Kimiko Glenn — who played inmate Brook Soso — showed off a handful of her residual paystubs on TikTok. The checks amounted to the grand sum of $27. Thanks, Netflix!

Before Canadian rapper Drake became a humungous R&B star, he was an actor. He started out playing basketball star Jimmy Brooks in a Canadian teen drama called Degrassi. Between 2001 and 2008, Aubrey Drake Graham appeared in all 145 episodes. So, he should have earned a pretty penny when Degrassi reruns were shown around the world, right?

Well, Drake once posted one of his Degrassi residual checks for $8.62. Not that he needs the money; he’s worth $250 million… but it’s the principal. Artists should get their due.

Standing for Alien Life Form, the kid-oriented sitcom ALF was the brainchild of puppeteer/voice actor Paul Fusco and aired on NBC from 1986 to 1990. The titular furry alien critter crash-landed on Earth in a typical suburban family’s garage. They adopted him, and hilarity ensued.

The year ALF was canceled, the show went into syndication, by which time ALF was famous around the world. However, creator, writer, puppeteer, and voice artist Paul Fusco only made about $300 per episode of first-year reruns. He got stuffed!

English comedian Tracey Ullman took America by storm in the late 1980s. The Tracey Ullman Show first aired on Fox on April 5th, 1987, the same night Married… Qith Children premiered. It ran until 1990 and famously spawned The Simpsons.

Tracey’s now worth $100 million, so must have had residuals. Unhappy The Simpsons became so popular, she sued the producers for a share of the profits. Eventually, the courts ruled in favor of the network and awarded her $5,000.

NBC’s 3rd Rock From the Sun told the tale of a family of humanoid aliens — played by John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt — who arrive on the titular Earth.

It aired for six seasons from 1996 to 2001, was a huge hit, and was in syndication from the fall of 1999 to the fall of 2004. Despite earning millions of dollars for NBC Studios, actor French Stewart has only ever received the laughable sum of $1,000 a year from reruns.

Full House tells the tale of widowed father and sports anchor Danny Tanner, who gets his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis and childhood best friend Joey Gladstone to help raise his three daughters. The show ran on ABC for eight seasons between 1987 and 1995. A sequel series, Fuller House, aired on Netflix between 2016 and 2020.

Despite playing the protagonist in both shows, Bob Saget only received between $2 and $2,000 yearly because he was not an executive producer. Tragically, Bob passed away in 2022.

Beloved sitcom Happy Days followed Milwaukee’s finest nuclear family, The Cunninghams, and their son Richie, played by Ron Howard. It aired on ABC from 1974 to 1984. The undeniable star of the show was leather-jacket-wearing biker The Fonz, played by Henry Winkler.

The show was syndicated and produced several spin-offs, including Laverne and Shirley and Chachi Loves Joni. But Howard and Winkler had to sue ABC for residual payments. Years later, they and their co-stars were awarded a measly $65,000. Gee, thanks!

Green Arrow has been a beloved DC comic book character for decades. Ripped actor Stephen Amell signed up to play billionaire playboy Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, and when The CW series took off between 2012 and 2020, he must have thought he was set up for life.

Despite the show’s popularity — and the fact that it spawned many other DC/The CW comic book shows — Amell has only ever made $100,000 from Arrow. Begging the question, was all that work on his abs worth it?

Can you believe Buffy the Vampire Slayer was first broadcast almost 30 years ago in 1997? Based on Joss Whedon’s disappointing 1992 film, Sarah Michelle Gellar stepped into Kristy Swanson’s shoes to battle vampires and demons who emerge from a Hellmouth while studying at high school in sunny Sunnydale, California.

Gellar originally earned $75,000 per episode, which increased to $350,000 per episode as the series grew in popularity. Yet while SMG carried the show, she only made a million dollars from reruns.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation burst onto the scene in 2001 and is still going strong. The original crime forensics procedural starred William Petersen, who ended up earning $18 million per season, and Marg Helgenberger, who earns around $10,000 per year from residuals. CSI spawned a host of spin-offs, including CSI: Miami in 2002.

This Florida-based iteration starred David Caruso, who earned $375,000 per episode as Detective Horatio Caine. The retired actor now earns up to $100,000 per year from repeat showings.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created the original The Office UK in 2001. The BBC mockumentary was a runaway success, and Ricky’s cringeworthy office middle manager, David Brent, remains one of a long line of beloved, delusional British sitcom characters.

When America remade The Office, they initially used the same jokes, but the British humor didn’t translate to US audiences. The writers changed the formula, and The Office USA was a hit. Despite creating the original show and syndicating it, Gervais only makes one million dollars annually.

Roseanne followed the exploits of the Conner family from the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois, and aired on ABC from 1988 to 1997. It was so popular that Mom and Dad Conner–Roseanne Barr and John Goodman–earned $250,000 per episode towards the end of the show.

Nowadays, John Goodman earns around a million dollars per year from reruns. Roseanne returned for two months in 2018 but was canceled after Barr posted a racist tweet. The rest of the family, sans Roseanne, returned in The Conners.

Dr. Phil began life offering life advice on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Well, okay, he actually started life as a baby, but the Dr. Phil we know and love first appeared on Oprah’s show. The clinical and forensic psychologist was so popular that Winfrey’s Harpo Productions gave Phil McGraw his own chat show in September 2002, drawing millions of viewers.

Nowadays, The Dr. Phil Show reruns air on the Oprah Winfrey Network, earning Phil McGraw over $10 million. In total, he’s worth $460 million.

For some unfathomable reason, DIY comedy shows were a thing in the 1990s. The most loved was Tim Allen’s Home Improvement, which aired on ABC from 1991 to 1999. It began airing in broadcast syndication in September 1995, distributed via Disney, and continued to be syndicated until 2007.

According to Tim, his monthly residuals have totaled $18 million so far. Add that to the oodles of cash he made voicing Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear, and his bank account has gone to infinity and beyond!

Hollywood bad boy Charlie Sheen starred in Two and a Half Men as hedonistic jingle-writing bachelor Charlie Harper, whose life is turned upside down when his brother Alan and his son move in. The show ran for 12 seasons between 2003 and 2015. However, Charlie left the show in 2010.

Some say he turned down $1 million per episode, while others say he went into rehab. Either way, he’s reportedly earned $20 million from residuals. Don’t ask what he spends his money on!

Created by David Chase, The Sopranos was one of the greatest television crime dramas ever. Set in New Jersey, it ran on HBO from 1999 to 2007 when gangster Tony Soprano walked out of that bar.

While heavyweight actor James Gandolfini put in a stellar performance as Tony, let’s not forget his downtrodden wife, Carmela, expertly portrayed by Edie Falco. Falco earned six Emmy nominations, winning three. Edie earned a Mafia-sized amount from residuals. Edie has brought home $26 million for putting up with Tony’s shenanigans.

While Frasier revolved around Frasier Crane, the show’s real star was Niles Crane, played by David Hyde Pierce. The Crane brothers’ sibling rivalry, high opinions of themselves, oversized egos, haughty intellectual interests, and desire to outperform each other made the show so great.

Plus, Niles and Daphne’s will-they-won’t-they storyline. So far, David Hyde Pierce has earned a total of $40 million from Frasier, which is not to be sniffed at. Well, Niles’ long list of allergies makes him sniff at everything.

After playing Michael Knight in the early-1980s show Knight Rider, David Hasselhoff created Baywatch. The California lifeguard-themed show saw millions of viewers (mainly adolescent boys like Friends’ Chandler Bing) tuning in to shout, “Run, Yasmine, Run!” as Yasmine Bleath, Pamela Anderson, and Erika Elniak ran in slow motion along the beach.

Baywatch was a global phenomenon, and even today, The Hoff earns a reported $4 million per year from reruns. The Hoff also made a mint from his singing career and was huge in Germany, especially to Hamburgers!

Cheers was one of the USA’s most beloved sitcoms. Airing between 1982 and 1993, it was set in a Boston bar and followed the lives of staff and regular barflies. It launched the careers of Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Kirsty Alley, and Kelsey Grammer.

Danson played former Boston Redsox pitcher and womanizing barman Sam Malone. Amazingly, Cheers was almost canceled when its premiere ranked 74th out of 77 shows. Luckily, the bar stayed open, and Ted Danson now makes $5 million a year from royalties.

While Dan Castellaneta earns millions voicing Homer Simpson, Hank Azaria makes almost as much voicing Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Professor Frink, Lou, Carl Carlson, Comic Book Guy, Snake Jailbird, and many more Springfield residents in Fox’s beloved animated sitcom The Simpsons. 

The show has been going almost 40 years and Hank has appeared in over 760 episodes. Azaria once commanded $400,000 per episode but had to take a pay cut to $300,000! He makes up to $10 million a year in royalties.

When Friends ended in 2004, the world held its collective breath, waiting for a sitcom to pick up its mantle. Enter The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom for nerds about nerds. Revolving around socially awkward dweeb Sheldon Cooper, it ran for 12 seasons from 2007 to 2019.

Between season eight and ten, star Jim Parsons earned $1.2 million per episode, meaning he made $86 million for those three seasons! The show and its prequel, Young Sheldon, earn Jim Parsons $10 million annually.

If you’re too young to remember Married… With Children, imagine The Simpsons with real actors. The Fox show ran from 1987 to 1997 and followed former Chicago high school football player turned pessimistic women’s shoe salesman Al Bundy, his lazy wife, Peggy (Katey Sagal), his hot but dim-witted daughter, Kelly (Christina Applegate), and his smart-aleck son, Bud (David Faustino).

The show was remade in 24 countries, and Ed O’Neill earns $10 million a year in residuals by sitting on his couch doing nothing… just like Al Bundy!

Who knew voicing animation was so lucrative? Tom Kenny has been the voice of SpongeBob Squarepants on Nickelodeon’s long-running animated show since the first episode in May 1999.

Yes, kids — SpongeBob Squarepants is more than a quarter of a century old, which means if you grew up watching it, you’ve probably got kids of your own now!The Nick show also airs on Hulu, Netflix, and other streaming platforms, meaning Tom Kenny rakes in $11 million per year for his voice talents.

Before he was the debonnaire silver fox that we know and love today, George Clooney starred as Doctor Doug Ross in John Wells and Michael Crichton’s ground-breaking 1990s medical drama, ER. The Chicago-based show ran on NBC from 1994 to 2009, and George made $100,000 per episode during his stint between ’94 and ’99.

Clooney is rumored to have made $13 million per year in residuals. He and his wife Amal put the money to good use, buying his own satellites to spy on terrorists and human rights violations.

When Cheers, the Boston bar where everybody knows your name, finally closed its doors in 1993, NBC needed a spin-off. They handed the baton to the bar’s grumpiest customer, elitist psychologist Frasier Crane. Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier ran from 1993 to 2004 and told the tale of his radio talk show psychologist and his brother, Niles.

Frasier has been in syndication since 1997. Kelsey might not know what to do with his tossed salad and scrambled eggs, but he knows how to spend the $13 million a year he earns in residuals.

Between 1951 and 1957, I Love Lucy was the most-watched show in America, with 44 million viewers tuning in to watch the “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” episode. The show was translated into dozens of languages, and 40 million Americans still watch it each year.

Husband-and-wife stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz held the rights to I Love Lucy, earning them $17 million a year. Adjusted for inflation, that’s enough to buy the moon. They both passed away in the 1980s, and CBS bought Desilu Productions in 2018.

Everybody Loves Raymond aired on CBS from 1996 to 2005, with 210 episodes spanning nine seasons. The hugely popular show told the tale of sarcastic Italian-American sportswriter Raymond “Ray” Barone and his three kids on Long Island. It was first syndicated in 1998 and is still shown around the world.

Poland, Egypt, The Netherlands, Israel, India, and Czechia remade the show. The main man, actor and comedian Ray Romano, is believed to make up to $18 million a year from residuals.

If you don’t already know, NCIS stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The procedural first saw the light of day as a JAG spin-off in 2003. Mark Harmon has played no-nonsense NCIS Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs throughout the show’s 19 seasons, and fans still tune in every week.

The former football player earns $525,000 per episode. However, because of his producer credits and syndication royalties, his yearly NCIS income is believed to be more than $20 million.

Friends is the most popular sitcom in history. The NBC show followed six Manhattan friends — Rachel Green, Phoebe Buffay, Chandler Bing, Joey Tribiani, and Ross and Monica Gellar — and ran for a glorious 10 years from 1994 to 2004.

Residuals generated from Cable TV and streaming services earn Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer $120 million between them every year. That’s $20 million each, which would buy a lot of cappuccinos in Central Perk cafe!

Nancy Cartwright is one of the most famous voices in television history. She’s voiced Bart Simpson since 1987 across over 768 episodes. That means her voice will probably be the first that aliens pick up, basing their perceptions of earthlings on skateboarding troublemaker Bart Simpson! She also voiced Chuckie Finster in the Nickelodeon series Rugrats.

For her services, Nancy earns a staggering $20 million per year. That figure includes her $300,000 per episode voice-over salary, merchandise, and syndication rights.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus starred as Jerry Seinfield’s annoying ex-girlfriend turned best friend, Elaine Benes, in his uber-popular 1990s sitcom. The show — whose one rule was “no hugging, no learning” — was a runaway success, and by the final season, NBC paid the show’s stars $600,000 per episode, which worked out to around $15 million each.

Since syndication, Julia has made a whopping $400 million from reruns. Not that she needs the money, as she inherited billions of dollars from her father’s business, The Dreyfuss Group.

Seth McFarlane is the genius comedian, writer, actor, voice-over artist, and impressionist behind Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show, Ted, and The Orville. He makes $50,000 an episode for voicing Peter, Brian, Stewie, Quagmire, and other inhabitants of Quahog, Rhode Island, while Seth Green makes four times as much.

McFarlane only makes $400,000 a year in residuals. That’s because he got the lion’s share upfront. In 2009, he signed a five-year, $100 million contract with Fox to showrun his armada of animations.

South Park began life when Fox executive Brian Graden sent Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s “The Spirit of Christmas” video as a Christmas card. That video became South Park, the genius satirical animation which revolves around four boys from Colorado — Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick.

Since 1997, South Park has been broadcast in hundreds of countries, earning its creators millions in merchandise. Trey and Matt have each earned around $500 million from South Park. Not bad for an animated Christmas Card!

Straight in at number one is actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Co-written with Larry David, his “Show about nothing” aired on NBC from 1989 to 1998, and is the daddy of syndicated shows. It told the tale of Jerry and his friends George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and Cosmo Kramer getting up to… well, nothing.

Seinfeld is the biggest-earning syndicated show in history, earning Jerry a staggering $110 million per year and writer Larry David $40 to $50 million a year from residuals. No wonder Larry never curbed his enthusiasm for writing!