Todd over at A Penny For has a nice snip from a WSJ article
Before Donald Trump agreed to tape a second season of his hit reality show "The Apprentice," he says he told NBC he'd need a few things. More creative control would be nice, and perhaps flashier living quarters for the contestants. And how about a personal publicist?Then Mr. Trump took out his calculator. NBC paid him about $50,000 an episode the first season. But with his show winning huge ratings, Mr. Trump wanted a fat raise. He heard the six actors on the hit comedy "Friends" each took home about $1.5 million an episode so, as the sole star of "The Apprentice," he figured he should get $9 million per show. Still, his program ran an hour and "Friends" just 30 minutes. Mr. Trump bumped the figure to $18 million. "That seemed fair," he says in an interview. "I'm not being totally facetious."
Does that mean that the next Survivor contestants will be able to commission a fee? Or the morons who lock themselves inside a Big Brother house?
Part of the appeal of reality programing for networks has been their relative cheap production costs. With their huge success in the ratings more and more personalities are going to up their cut provided they can get another go.
(P.S. Wouldn't it be great to have an Australian version of the Apprentice with big Kerry Packer at the helm!)
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