NBC Clinches Deal for New ‘Friends’ Season

NBC finalized a deal Monday that will secure another season of “Friends,” with the cast of prime time’s top-rated series signing for an additional year at a salary believed to exceed $1 million for each cast member per episode.

Although NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., will be hard pressed to make money on the show at that high a fee, its renewal seemed increasingly imperative as ratings for the series have soared this season, weathering a challenge from CBS’ “Survivor.”

Representatives for NBC and AOL Time Warner Inc. unit Warner Bros. Television, which produces “Friends,” announced the agreement late Monday, with NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker saying in a statement that it is “no secret how important ‘Friends’ is to NBC.” The parties declined to discuss specifics of the deal, but sources said the network will pay nearly $6.5million an episode, or more than $150million for the season, making it one of the most expensive half hours in TV history. AOL Time Warner would shoulder the balance of the production costs.

The cast, with advances against profits from the show’s reruns figured in, earns more than $900,000 an episode per actor under an agreement that expires this spring.

At 24 episodes per season, each actor is expected to receive roughly $25 million for what will by all accounts be the show’s final year.

Several sources said the cast members had thought this would be the show’s last season before its lofty ratings and perceived creative resurgence prompted them to reconsider and agree to continue.

“They have [other] things in their lives; this was supposed to end,” said a source close to the cast, noting that the outpouring of affection for the series had an effect on the stars’ decision to return.

During more difficult renewal negotiations two years ago, when a deal was finalized less than 36 hours before NBC was scheduled to announce its fall lineup of shows in New York, “Friends” stars Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox Arquette and Matthew Perry presented a united front in sealing a landmark package to stay with the show two more years.

Though that deal involved financial incentives on various levels, including back-end profit participation, the current negotiation was said to be more straightforward.

Still, the raises put the six actors in the company of sitcom stars such as Jerry Seinfeld and Tim Allen in the latter years of “Seinfeld” and “Home Improvement,” as well as “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer.

NBC desperately needs the series to maintain its ratings supremacy among the younger demographics sought by advertisers and to plant the seeds of future hits. As it is, the network has struggled to build successful new comedies behind “Friends” on Thursday--a night when movie studios pay a premium to promote their upcoming releases.

“The 8 o’clock time period is really important,” said Tim Spengler, executive vice president and director of national broadcast at Initiative Media North America, a major media-buying firm, adding that without “Friends” to lead off Thursdays for NBC, “the whole night could crumble.”