I don't know how much any of the shows on this list cost to produce, but I do know that Friends used to cost 6 million an ep just to pay the main cast members, and that Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a WB show, so I'm assuming far less expensive than a comparable NBC show) cost 2 million an episode.

@5: I'd be very surprised if it costs nearly as much as you think to produce an episode of Heroes. Ad revenue isn't going to be as high as you think either, you're probably talking in the region of $8.5 million. Multiplying that by this season's 24 episodes gives a total of $204 million. I'd guess it costs in the region of $3 million to produce a single episode start to finish, but we'll call it $4 million to be on the safe side, that's only $96 million in production costs. You need to take promotional costs out of the revenue, but you're still looking at around $100 million in profits over a season, which seems plenty profitable to me.

Honestly, those numbers are guesstimates at best, so if anyone with actual information wants to challenge them, feel free -- but I'd be surprised if I was massively wrong on this.

@6: You're completely wrong, the producers take their cut along with everyone else out of the per episode budget which is paid for by the advertising revenue. They may get a little extra from syndication and dvd rights, but it's far from the "big bucks".

The producers, etc. really make their $ if/when the show goes into syndication, cable and DVD sales. First run broadcast does not make the producer the big bucks...something called "the back end" and another thing called "hollywood accounting".

These advertising rates actually seem pretty low to me. I mean, let's say Heroes (which gets about 300,000 for a thirty second slot) airs 20 minutes of comemrcials an episode. That comes to 12 million dollars in ad revenue per episode. I don't know how much it costs to make an episode of Heroes, but paying the main cast members alone probably costs at least four or five million. Add in the cost of sets, film crews, special effects, advertising the show, and a number of other beind-the-scenes expenses, there's probably only a couple million of profit left over. And Heroes is considered a hit show; how small must the profit margin on a mid-list show be?

Total viewers don't matter. It's 18-35, 18-49, or don't bother. If you're 62 and watching "CSI," Toyota isn't paying for your eyeballs.

Yeah, you're right, the Ad Age article only lists nine. But I looked at their chart and found out the tenth show and updated the list (it's Prison Break). Thanks for pointing that out Cuzzy.

you only list 9

Wow, ABC must have done some serious hyping to get Private Practice up there.