Tomorrow could spell the end of “Friends.”
With actors’ salary negotiations deadlocked, talks to bring back the popular sitcom this fall have stalled, and NBC has imposed a deadline of noon tomorrow to resolve the conflict.
“We have a noon deadline on Sunday, and we are prepared to announce our lineup on Monday without ‘Friends’ in it,” network officials said in a prepared statement yesterday.
Officials at Warner Bros., the studio that produces the sitcom, declined to comment.
For months, TV insiders have speculated that the biggest problems had been between NBC and Warner Bros. concerning the pricey fees the studio wanted for the rights to carry the show. But according to reports, those disagreements have been resolved.
Now the big roadblock appears to be the salaries of the show’s six stars.
Each is currently paid $125,000 an episode, but they want $1 million apiece. NBC and Warner Bros. have drawn the line at $800,000, according to the entertainment industry Web site Inside.com.
While a $200,000 difference appears to be small change for big companies like NBC and Warner Bros., the sum really equals much more when the actors’ demands are spelled out on paper. That amount, multiplied by the six cast members, equals $1.2 million per episode.
With talks focusing on a two-year deal for 22 episodes each year, the difference actually amounts to about $53 million.
Talks have dragged on for months, and the slow negotiations initially led to speculation that the network might try to replace one or two of the “Friends.”
But the actors – who have worked together on the show since 1994 – have stuck together and vowed they would negotiate as a united front – no one would return next season if any one of them was dropped from the show.
Only a select few sitcom actors such as Jerry Seinfeld and “Mad About You” stars Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt have been paid $1 million an episode. All three got the big bucks during their shows’ final seasons.
When “Home Improvement” ended last year after eight seasons on ABC, Tim Allen was TV’s highest-paid star – pulling in $1.25 million per episode.