6 ms·

The Economics of Seinfeld (2010)

79 points by herbertl 5y ago

manifoldgeo 5y ago
I was hoping this article was going to be about TV show syndication. Jerry Seinfeld was worth nearly one billion dollars last time I checked, nearly all from royalties paid out for reruns of the show. How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that?
- qiskit 5y ago
  > Jerry Seinfeld was worth nearly one billion dollars last time I checked I always wondered who made out better from the show - larry david or seinfeld? > nearly all from royalties paid out for reruns of the show. How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that? The royalties aren't just from NBC. It's from everywhere they syndicate the show - netflix, amazon, other tv channels, other countries, etc.
  - psyc 5y ago
    At those dollar amounts, they probably made out roughly the same. David would also be worth about a billion (similarly, mostly from Seinfeld), if he hadn't divorced.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Idk the payout by role, but besides only being an actor in a few episodes (stienbrener's voice, cape wearing attorney, & ?) Larry David left the show (as a writer) after season 7. I'm sure he still got paid plenty as a co-creator for post-season-7, but I'd think not being a writer for the full run, or being primary cast, would put him earning less overall royalties than Seinfeld, assuming they got paid roughly the same as creators.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      Seinfeld was among the last shows that paid no royalty to the actors going forward. Seinfeld gets royalties because he was a producer.
      - adwi 5y ago
        The cast receives standard SAG-AFTRA residuals and negotiated profit participation in the DVD sales. But yes, those are likely order of magnitude less than Seinfeld/David get with their backend participation.
    - gingerlime 5y ago
      > Larry David left the show (as a writer) after season 7. I’m rewatching with my wife, who never watched it before, and definitely the latest seasons feel worse. I didn’t remember it this way. Now I understand why.
      - easton 5y ago
        The interesting thing is that two of the most remembered jokes from the show, "Serenity Now!" and Festivus, were both in Season 9.
        gingerlime 5y ago
        honestly fwiw I only vaguely remember festivus and don’t remember serenity now at all. I don’t think seinfeld was great for jokes as such. if anything, I feel like later episodes were a bit trying too hard to create jokes and over-the-top silly situations (e.g the episode where Kramer sells the real Peterman bus tour and Elaine trying to dump the stumps of the cupcakes)
        dwighttk 5y ago
        Muffins
        gingerlime 5y ago
        always get those two confused!
        tamaharbor 5y ago
        Top of the muffin to you!
        kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        The Peterman bus tour was a meta joke because the real Kramer was running a Seinfeld bus tour in real life.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that? They have paid it out as a percentage of revenue over many years. They raised the offer to $5 million an episode for the 10th season (that he refused), so they only had been paying like $2 million an episode ($46 million a year) when it was on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  > How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that? Obviously from receiving more than a billion dollars...
dang 5y ago
Related: The Economics of Seinfeld - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8673394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8673394 - Nov 2014 (23 comments) The Economics of Seinfeld - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1898243 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1898243 - Nov 2010 (1 comment)
gigatexal 5y ago
Love this. I never watched the show but majored in economics so this is fun.
- morninglight 5y ago
  The funniest Seinfeld episode had no actors, but lots of irony. Jerry Seinfeld owns a an automobile collection of about 150 cars, including a large Porsche collection. He rented a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport in California, for an extended period during the 1990s for storage of some of the collection. In 2002, Seinfeld purchased property on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where he built a $1.4 million two-story garage to store part of his Porsche collection on the East Coast. The centerpiece of his collection is a $700,000 Porsche 959, one of only 337 built. In 2008, Seinfeld was involved in a car accident when the brakes on his 1967 Fiat 500 failed and, to avoid an intersection, he pulled the emergency brake while turning sharply, ultimately causing the car to flip onto its side. No one was hurt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_959 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_959 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Seinfeld#Automobiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Seinfeld#Automobiles .

79 points by herbertl 5y ago

I was hoping this article was going to be about TV show syndication. Jerry Seinfeld was worth nearly one billion dollars last time I checked, nearly all from royalties paid out for reruns of the show. How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that?

qiskit 5y ago
> Jerry Seinfeld was worth nearly one billion dollars last time I checked I always wondered who made out better from the show - larry david or seinfeld? > nearly all from royalties paid out for reruns of the show. How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that? The royalties aren't just from NBC. It's from everywhere they syndicate the show - netflix, amazon, other tv channels, other countries, etc.
- psyc 5y ago
  At those dollar amounts, they probably made out roughly the same. David would also be worth about a billion (similarly, mostly from Seinfeld), if he hadn't divorced.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Idk the payout by role, but besides only being an actor in a few episodes (stienbrener's voice, cape wearing attorney, & ?) Larry David left the show (as a writer) after season 7. I'm sure he still got paid plenty as a co-creator for post-season-7, but I'd think not being a writer for the full run, or being primary cast, would put him earning less overall royalties than Seinfeld, assuming they got paid roughly the same as creators.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    Seinfeld was among the last shows that paid no royalty to the actors going forward. Seinfeld gets royalties because he was a producer.
    - adwi 5y ago
      The cast receives standard SAG-AFTRA residuals and negotiated profit participation in the DVD sales. But yes, those are likely order of magnitude less than Seinfeld/David get with their backend participation.
  - gingerlime 5y ago
    > Larry David left the show (as a writer) after season 7. I’m rewatching with my wife, who never watched it before, and definitely the latest seasons feel worse. I didn’t remember it this way. Now I understand why.
    - easton 5y ago
      The interesting thing is that two of the most remembered jokes from the show, "Serenity Now!" and Festivus, were both in Season 9.
      - gingerlime 5y ago
        honestly fwiw I only vaguely remember festivus and don’t remember serenity now at all. I don’t think seinfeld was great for jokes as such. if anything, I feel like later episodes were a bit trying too hard to create jokes and over-the-top silly situations (e.g the episode where Kramer sells the real Peterman bus tour and Elaine trying to dump the stumps of the cupcakes)
        dwighttk 5y ago
        Muffins
        gingerlime 5y ago
        always get those two confused!
        tamaharbor 5y ago
        Top of the muffin to you!
        kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        The Peterman bus tour was a meta joke because the real Kramer was running a Seinfeld bus tour in real life.
HWR_14 5y ago
> How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that? They have paid it out as a percentage of revenue over many years. They raised the offer to $5 million an episode for the 10th season (that he refused), so they only had been paying like $2 million an episode ($46 million a year) when it was on.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Mikeb85 5y ago
> How the hell did broadcast networks like NBC afford a payout like that? Obviously from receiving more than a billion dollars...

dang 5y ago

Related: The Economics of Seinfeld - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8673394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8673394 - Nov 2014 (23 comments) The Economics of Seinfeld - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1898243 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1898243 - Nov 2010 (1 comment)

gigatexal 5y ago

Love this. I never watched the show but majored in economics so this is fun.

morninglight 5y ago
The funniest Seinfeld episode had no actors, but lots of irony. Jerry Seinfeld owns a an automobile collection of about 150 cars, including a large Porsche collection. He rented a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport in California, for an extended period during the 1990s for storage of some of the collection. In 2002, Seinfeld purchased property on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where he built a $1.4 million two-story garage to store part of his Porsche collection on the East Coast. The centerpiece of his collection is a $700,000 Porsche 959, one of only 337 built. In 2008, Seinfeld was involved in a car accident when the brakes on his 1967 Fiat 500 failed and, to avoid an intersection, he pulled the emergency brake while turning sharply, ultimately causing the car to flip onto its side. No one was hurt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_959 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_959 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Seinfeld#Automobiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Seinfeld#Automobiles .