Hour-longs:
| Show | Cable Net | $ per episode | Year |
| The Sopranos | A&E | 2,500,000 | 2007 |
| Hawaii Five-0 | TNT | 2,500,000 | 2011 |
| NCIS: Los Angeles | USA | 2,200,000 | 2009 |
| The Mentalist | TNT | 2,200,000 | 2009 |
| Law & Order: CI | USA Network/Bravo | 1,900,000 | 2004 |
| CSI: NY | Spike | 1,900,000 | 2004 |
| CSI | Spike | 1,600,000 | 2001 |
| Castle | TNT | 1,500,000 | 2011 |
| Cold Case | TNT | 1,400,000 | 2005 |
| Without a Trace | TNT | 1,400,000 | 2003 |
| House | USA | 1,400,000 | 2005 |
| Medium | Lifetime | 1,350,000 | 2005 |
| Law & Order: SVU | USA | 1,300,000 | 2001 |
| Person of Interest | WGN America | 1,300,000 | 2013 |
| Elementary | WGN America | 1,300,000 | 2014 |
| Grey's Anatomy | Lifetime | 1,200,000 | 2006 |
| The West Wing | Bravo | 1,200,000 | 2001 |
| CSI: Miami | A&E | 1,000,000 | 2003 |
| Law & Order | TNT | 800,000 | 2002 |
| NCIS | USA | 750,000 | 2006 |
| Criminal Minds | A&E | 650,000 | 2008 |
| Glee | Oxygen | 500,000 | 2010 |
| Desperate Housewives | Lifetime | 500,000 | 2006 |
| Bones | TNT | 450,000 | 2008 |
| Smallville | ABC Family | 400,000 | 2004 |
| Heroes | G4 | 300,000 | 2007 |
| Lost | Sci-Fi/G4 | 200,000 | 2008 |
| Ugly Betty | TV Guide | 200,000 | 2009 |
Half-hours:
| Show | Cable Net | $ per episode | Year |
| 2 Broke Girls | TBS | 1,700,000 | 2012 |
| The Big Bang Theory | TBS | 1,500,000 | 2010 |
| Modern Family | USA | 1,400,000 | 2010 |
| Two and a Half Men | FX | 850,000 | 2006 |
| 30 Rock | Comedy Central | 800,000 | 2009 |
| Mike and Molly | FX | 750,000 | 2012 |
| How I Met Your Mother | Lifetime | 750,000 | 2008 |
| Sex and the City | TBS | 750,000 | 2003 |
| New Girl | TBS/MTV | 700,000 | 2013 |
| It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia | Comedy Central | 700,000 | 2009 |
| The Office | TBS | 650,000 | 2007 |
| My Name is Earl | TBS | 600,000 | 2007 |
| Entourage | Spike | 600,000 | 2009 |
| Curb Your Enthusiasm | TV Guide/TV Land | 600,000 | 2009 |
| The Cleveland Show | TBS/Adult Swim | 500,000 | 2010 |
| Bob's Burgers | Adult Swim | 500,000 | 2013 |
| Old Christine | Lifetime | 350,000 | 2009 |
| According to Jim | TBS | 300,000 | 2005 |
DISCLAIMER: These are just cable deals and don't (or at least shouldn't) include broadcast syndication money or streaming. They're all estimates, and at times they are even estimates of estimates, as not even all these figures are totally agreed upon. These figures might occasionally include money from a secondary network that isn't listed, like WGN or ION, and I should also note that there are other aspects of the deals (like minimum/maximum episode #s) that vary and that we're generally not privy to in Internet-land. Generally, though, they should be pretty good ballpark figures.
Since I mostly talk primetime first-run ratings around here, I'm not making this post for any reason other than to illuminate just one part of the balance sheet for many shows still around today or in recent history. I don't have access to the information that would allow me to make judgments on how solid these deals were for the cable nets, though the losses taken on many of these pacts (I'm thinking of Without a Trace, Entourage, pretty much all the Lifetime deals, and especially the ridiculous Sopranos deal) have been well documented elsewhere in the media.
Hoping to update this in the future as information for other shows comes out. There are a few shows whose cable bucks I'm quite interested in but couldn't find anything, namely Family Guy and American Dad! on TBS/Adult Swim, Scrubs on Comedy Central, and Supernatural on TNT. So if anybody knows of those or other figures or wants to contest some of the above, have at it.
10 comments:
Great & informative list. Very useful!
Hey, do you happen to have any info whatsoever on 'Til Death? (given that it now airs on Spike and WGN America/your local Tribune-owned station)
I know nothing, sorry. Shockingly, that was not one of the higher-profile acquisitions!
What's shocking to me is that it's actually lasted more than a month on WGN (meaning that "a Tribune station near you" is probably also still running it).
2 Broke Girls are worth the biggest price? so i guess TBS expects the show to top syndicated ratings in the future, like TBBT did ;)
it's all really expensive. do foreing broadcasters pay as much? because there is no way the system pays off in small countries.
I haven't really seen numbers but I would think the individual foreign deals are a small fraction of these, if for no other reason than because those other TV universes are so much smaller.
I realise this is an old comment on an old article, but I was wondering if you had any information on how much an overseas channel typically pays for first run rights to a US tv show. I've not been able to find any information myself but I thought you might be in the know.
Foreign popularity has been something that is becoming more important each year especially now that more and more US shows get higher viewerships in other countries, as US viewership is becoming more evenly split over huge amounts of options, while abroad the viewership is generally more centralised on a few networks eg. Homeland at one point got double the US total viewership in the UK, despite having a much smaller population.
Along these lines: cable shows often get pre-sold particularly to UK networks, and I wonder if it affects the casting, as shows seem to be more commonly casting famous actors from Europe and such shows seem to be the ones pre-sold around the world eg. Fargo casts Martin Freeman and gets pre-sold to channel 4 in the UK, Hannibal casts Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikklesen and gets shown worldwide, Homeland with Damien Lewis is very popular in the Uk etc.
I've got nothing. Sorry!
If you're still interested in this information, Deadline reported that Bob's Burgers went for $500,000/ep
Thanks! Also added New Girl, Person of Interest, Elementary.
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