Seinfeld Cast Negotiated Salaries After Syndication Demands Were Rejected

We knew that for the network alone, every episode of Seinfeld generated fourteen million dollars of profit, of sheer profit for the network alone, let alone Castle Rock and the syndication participants.

We had argued that after five years of being in Seinfeld, there was no upside in the long run for the three of us to continue doing the show.

It had made us celebrities. It had made us some money.

But if we were gonna be actors with careers that extended where we needed to play different roles, continuing to put out the image of George, Elaine, and Kramer was actually detrimental to our long-run careers.

So why was there any incentive for us to be in this for the long run unless those shows were extremely profitable to us?

So we argued that we needed to be cut in on syndication.

We needed syndication points, and we were told in, in no small terms to go take a hike.

When we got into the bargaining chair, and NBC so desperately wanted to have another season or another two seasons, we said again, "Syndication?

Our salaries are fine, but you're making such massive profits in syndication, profits of three to four million dollars per show, and i-in, in, you know, in, to infinity, and you don't wanna give us any of that?

Okay. In order for us to feel good about doing this show, I wanna leave the most successful half hour in the history of television knowing that I never have to work again.

That is what I require, or you can't have my services."

So knowing what the, all the revenues were, what we would have made had they given us the syndication, what everybody was making up front, we said, we tried to figure out what percentage of the success formula of the show were the three of us,

and we came up with Jerry, Larry, the writers, us, and everything else, the, the wonderful guest players, you know, all, all the other stuff.

Well, as one-fifth of that formula, we said, "Here's the number, a million an episode."

And- And when you uttered that number- Uh-huh ... what did they say?

They did what they should have done, which is laughed at us.

I, and I also knew that it was detrimental to television if they made the deal with us, and it has proven to be detrimental.

It is outrageous upfront money, outrageous.

It is bad for television. Thirteen million dollars an episode for ER?

A million dollars each to Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt for a show that's number twenty-five to thirty in the ratings?

These are bad prices. You ask for that kind of money when you are producing the kind of profit revenue that we are producing.

But we couldn't ask for it on that side.

They wouldn't give it to us. So we had to take it out up front, and I personally feel that we damaged the economics of television and that NBC was foolish to give us what they gave us.

But there was no way we were gonna come back for anything less than the six.

The six was my bottom line, so I guess I'm guilty of that.

I knew that at six hundred thousand an episode, we would gross a certain amount, I would net a certain amount, and that would pay for the rest of my life.