Last Thursday, NBC announced that they would be redesigning next year’s fall schedule to cut down on comedies and focus more on cheaper shows like reality TV and game shows for the 8 pm timeslot. The network also recently reported that they would be cutting expenses by $750 million dollars by 2008, which will result in the loss of about 700 jobs.
It’s no secret that reality TV and game shows are a lot cheaper to produce than drama and comedies. While NBC has had huge success with comedies in the past (‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ to name a couple semi-recent hits), it was widely known that the casts of some of the shows were paid extremely large salaries. Jerry Seinfeld was actually offered $5 million dollars an episode by the time the show had reached its end.
When producing reality shows, with the exception of the prize money and the occasional contestant stipend (which is a fraction of what an actual actor would be paid), the shows cost about half of what it costs to make a drama or comedy series. This is why the network is planning to fill most of their 8 pm timeslots with reality shows and game shows like ‘Deal or No Deal’, that tend to draw in just as many viewers as dramas and comedies but wont cost as much.
