Forget medical school. If you want your kids to support you in your old age, send your kids to comedy camp. According to Time Warner, which owns the series “Seinfeld” the show has made an incredible $2.7 billion, since it went off the air 12 years ago. TV studios hardly ever reveal the amounts made by their most successful TV series, but at an investors’ conference late last month, execs spilled the beans about how the show was such a moneymaker. The amazing figure was revealed by Barry Meyer, chairman of Warner Brothers Entertainment, which has the rights to the Seinfeld series. The details of the report were carried by the trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter. The numbers indicate that reruns on regular TV have grossed $2.3 billion since 1998. Revenues from cable were about $380 million, reported execs.
Get this, “Seinfeld” which made 180 episodes during its nine-year run, means that each half-hour episode has earned more than $14 million so far. The numbers don’t include what the show or its stars made on the original run of the show on NBC. Forbes magazine has been estimating for years that Jerry makes between $65-80 million a year from reruns of the show. Creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David have made hundreds of millions of dollars from syndication.
“Seinfeld” was well-acted, well-written, and people related to the characters, which in other words, was plain funny. Comedy shows if they are well-written can last forever, just like the old-time favorite “I Love Lucy.” The show still makes us laugh today, it’s funny. Women watch more prime time TV than men, women watch everything, and men watch sports. Hopefully someday the TV execs will realize that, and will stop catering to the 18- to-34-year old males.
Besides comedy shows, these days viewers are tuning in to “The Cake Boss.” In addition to the third season of the Hoboken, New Jersey –set hit TV show, TLC continues to expand its food programming this summer with a new show following a cupcake bakery in Washington, D.C. Buddy Valastro and the crew at Carlos Bakery will have special events in Hoboken leading up to the bakery’s centennial on June 19. Now, “Cupcake Dreams,” premiering July 16, on TLC will feature sisters and business partners Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis of Georgetown Cupcake.
Rose’s Scoop: Portugal’s Prince Cristiano Ronaldo was on the cover of the June 9th issue of the New York Post gearing up for the 2010 World Cup.
Happy Father’s Day!
