Rison
The Nomination Pillow has spoken!
Thanks correct. Warner Bros. foot the bill for everything - cast, crew, materials etc - they then recoup this money via their deal with CBS (where they pay up to $5,000,000 per episode just to air the show!), the syndication deals within the US and through licensing the series to air in other countries.I think Nine get TBBT from their output deal with Warners Bros. So it's actually relatively cheap for them.
@IRT5 might be able to confirm that. But yeah.
Any network that airs the show recoups the money they've given to Warner Bros. by selling commercial time to advertisers, at rates based on the ratings of the show. What the networks pays for the license would probably vary on population etc, but definitely won't be close to what CBS pays.
ie in New Zealand, when our local soap goes on hiatus for a few weeks, reruns of TBBT will air at 7pm. Even though they aren't new episodes, it will cost up to $13,000 NZD for 30-seconds of ad-time (according to the TVNZ website). That means from just one episode will result in roughly $234,000 NZD from ad revenue for a single old episode and $1,170,000 NZD each week.
Either this is just pure profit, or it's still recouping money spent on an expensive show license.
Either this is just pure profit, or it's still recouping money spent on an expensive show license.