Highlights
- Ray Romano negotiated a record-breaking contract during the height of Everybody Loves Raymond.
- Romano receives staggering residual payments.
- Romano’s co-stars were underpaid for years.
Even though a lot of people don’t talk about Everybody Loves Raymond much now, the show was a huge hit at the height of its popularity. That mammoth success made Everybody Loves Raymond’s cast extremely wealthy. Ray Romano even became one of the TV stars who made at least $1 million per episode.
Unlike Romano, it is a lot harder to find out how much his former co-stars made per episode. For that reason, it makes sense that many fans aren’t sure if Romano’s Everybody Loves Raymond co-stars get paid as much in residuals as he does now.
How Much Money Does Ray Romano Get In Royalty Payments?
For a long time, most people had no idea that actors get paid royalty payments based on the shows and movies they starred in. Referred to as residual payments in the business, even actors who only have a small speaking role in a movie or TV show still get small royalties.
As Everybody Loves Raymond’s main star, Ray Romano was always going to get impressive residuals from the show. More than that, the fact that Romano played a pivotal role in the show’s success allowed him to secure even more money in residual payments.
In 2003, Romano and his team negotiated with CBS to get a new contract. Since Romano was Everybody Loves Raymond’s star and producer, he managed to negotiate a contract that was record-breaking at the time.
As a part of Romano’s deal, he was paid $1.8 million per episode. At that time, Romano became TV’s highest-paid star in history. Before that, Kelsey Grammar had been the record-holder as he was paid $1.6 million per episode of Frasier.
On top of Romano getting an incredible per-episode salary, he was able to secure bigger residual payments for himself. According to a 2022 Yahoo article that cites Forbes and Vanity Fair, Romano gets a staggering amount of money in residual payments per year.
“Romano can earn up to $18 million a year, mainly from show residuals.”
How Much Does The Cast Of Everybody Loves Raymond Make In Royalty Payments?
Looking back at the history of Everybody Loves Raymond, there is no doubt that Ray Romano was the show’s main star. After all, the beloved sitcom was named after Romano, it was based on his comedy, and most episodes revolved around his character.
With all that in mind, it makes sense that CBS clearly valued Romano and paid him very well accordingly. On the other hand, from the outside looking in, it sometimes seemed like CBS didn’t respect Everybody Loves Raymond’s other stars enough.
No matter how many fans loved Romano, most viewers enjoyed the rest of Everybody Loves Raymond’s cast. For proof of that, all anyone has to do is look at the fact that it is hard to imagine Everybody Loves Raymond if all the show’s other stars left en masse.
Despite how pivotal Romano’s adult co-stars were, CBS arguably underpaid them for years. Things eventually got so bad that one of Romano’s main co-stars went to extremes to ensure he got a serious pay raise.
Once Ray Romano began being paid $1.8 million per episode, that caused one of his co-stars to be appalled by his own salary. According to reports, Romano’s co-star Brad Garrett was only being paid $160,000 per episode at the time.
Realizing that he was making less than a tenth of Romano’s salary must have inspired Garrett to say enough is enough. After all, Garrett staged a walkout that lasted two and a half weeks and garnered a slew of headlines.
In response to Garrett’s walkout, CBS initially released a statement calling the actor out. ”Brad Garrett is an enormously talented actor whom we hold in the highest regard. It’s unfortunate that he is not honoring his contract.”
Ultimately, CBS gave in and gave Garrett the raise he was demanding. After Garrett got his raise, he reportedly began making between $250,000 and $450,000 per episode. That reportedly made Garrett’s salary in line with what Patricia Heaton was being paid.
Despite Garrett getting a raise, there is one thing the coverage of his pay dispute never mentioned. There has never been any indication that Garrett got CBS to up the money he receives in residuals.
Similarly, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that Garrett and Romano’s other co-stars ever got a bigger piece of the residual pie. In fct, based on the Washington Post’s article about Romano getting $1.8 million per episode, his co-stars would only get paid basic residuals.
“It’s easy for Rosenthal and star Romano to talk about wanting to quit while they’re on top; their deals give them a cut of the show’s very successful rerun business. ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ will keep on giving to these two men for years to come. No such future was awaiting the supporting cast members of the show.”
Even though there is no indication that Romano’s co-star negotiated to get higher residuals, they still would get a decent amount of money. According to SAG-AFTRA, Everybody Loves Raymond’s supporting cast must be getting impressive residual checks.
On SAG-AFTRA’s website, they have a section that outlines how residual payments typically are calculated. “Residuals are based on formulas that take into account such things as the contract in place during the specific year, time spent on the production, the production type and the market where the product appears (TV, video/DVD, pay television, basic cable, new media).”
Based on that outline, it seems safe to assume that Everybody Loves Raymond’s supporting cast gets a lot of money in residuals annually. After all, they were paid hundreds of thousands per episode, and they worked on the show for years. Everybody Loves Raymond also airs constantly in syndication, and it is now available to be streamed.
That said, it also is very clear Romano’s former co-stars’ residual payments are a relatively small fraction of what Romano gets. The proof for that is the fact that Romano got paid multiple times what his co-stars did, and he negotiated a bigger percentage of the residuals.
Source: NewsFinale
