The Highest-Paid TV Showrunners 2024

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Creating a hit series like South Park, Law & Order or The Big Bang Theory is worth a fortune, but a new breed of producers is still getting rich in a fractured television economy by creating shows that are born to re-run.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2024/09/13/the-highest-paid-tv-showrunners-2024/

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Transcript
00:00Today on Forbes, the highest-paid TV showrunners 2024.
00:06One veteran entertainment manager, speaking about the deals top TV producers are offered today,
00:11says, quote,
00:13"...the yacht money is gone."
00:15It was a different story five years ago.
00:18That was the peak of the so-called streaming wars,
00:20when studios and technology companies,
00:23bolstered by low interest rates and Wall Street optimism,
00:26were locked in an arms race for subscriber growth,
00:29seemingly at any cost.
00:31The number of scripted TV shows on broadcast and streaming in that period,
00:35surpassed 500 for the first time.
00:38And for those creators whose content broke through to mainstream popularity,
00:42the dollar amounts had a lot of zeros.
00:44At least a dozen showrunners signed nine-figure deals during that window,
00:49and another dozen landed more than $50 million across four- or five-year contracts.
00:54Now, with the majority of those deals having expired or set to end in the coming months,
01:00the same creators are emerging into a very different TV landscape.
01:04The effects of the pandemic,
01:05two Hollywood strikes,
01:07and widespread corporate cost-cutting,
01:09not to mention the lack of hits produced on some large showrunner deals,
01:12have cratered the market for overall deals, show orders, and licensing deals.
01:18For the winners at Sunday's 2024 Emmy Awards,
01:21it will be gold-plated trophies, and not outsized paydays,
01:25that are the prize at the end of the red carpet.
01:28There are still, however, a few showrunners whose earnings defy gravity.
01:32The older generation of creators,
01:34who own a percentage of the $100 million or more in profits thrown off each year by mega-hits,
01:39like The Simpsons or The Big Bang Theory.
01:43Of TV's highest-paid showrunners for 2024,
01:46five creators made more than $100 million in the past 12 months,
01:50even after paying fees to agents, managers, and lawyers.
01:54South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker,
01:56BET super-producer Tyler Perry,
01:59Law & Order's Dick Wolf,
02:01The Simpsons' J.L. Brooks and Matt Groening,
02:04and The Big Bang Theory's Chuck Lorre,
02:06account for more than half of the $1.2 billion collected by the top 20.
02:11The disparity would be even greater with the addition of Friends producers Kevin Bright,
02:15Marta Kaufman, and David Crane,
02:17but eligibility was restricted to showrunners who had a new show on the air in the past year.
02:23Because traditional profit participation and syndication has been mostly eradicated in the streaming era,
02:29and the number of episodes produced by each show has sharply declined,
02:32there is little potential for the astronomical success enjoyed by past generations of producers.
02:38In order to justify their ongoing value to studios and streamers,
02:42today's showrunners have become something closer to mini-studio heads,
02:46overseeing a small universe of shows and projects for a platform.
02:50Producers as prolific as Yellowstone's Taylor Sheridan
02:53or American Horror Story's Ryan Murphy can still command big totals.
02:58These so-called Godfather producers are handsomely paid on any project they are associated with,
03:04regardless of their level of involvement.
03:06It's a big reason why the top 20 showrunners only include three producers under the age of 50 years old.
03:13Parks and Recreation's Michael Schur, who's 48,
03:16Westworld's Lisa Joy, who's 47,
03:19and Jonathan Nolan, who's 48,
03:21compared to five over the age of 70.
03:25For the younger generation of showrunners who are coming of age in this new TV environment
03:29and are often still on their first hit show,
03:32overall deals almost never exceed $10 million,
03:35with per-episode fees charged off against that total.
03:39This new crop, who are generally more diverse in terms of race, gender, and sexual orientation,
03:44have little chance of reaching the upper echelon of earnings in the near future.
03:48At the top of this year's highest-paid showrunners list
03:51are Matt Stone and Trey Parker at $162 million,
03:56$180 million gross.
03:58The duo behind Colorado's potty-mouthed elementary schoolers
04:01are still the industry pacesetters
04:03thanks to the all-encompassing six-year, $935 million deal
04:08they inked with ViacomCBS in 2021
04:11for ongoing rights to South Park.
04:14Parker and Stone said in a recent Vanity Fair interview
04:17that they are pausing production on the show until after the 2024 presidential election.
04:21Parker said, quote,
04:27Meanwhile, their long-running musical, The Book of Mormon,
04:29is still going strong on Broadway,
04:31in London's West End,
04:32and in Australia, beginning in 2025.
04:37For full coverage, and to see our whole list of the 20 highest-paid showrunners for 2024,
04:42check out Matt Craig and Lissette Voitko Best's piece on Forbes.com.
04:48This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:50Thanks for tuning in.
05:01you

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