Fortune

‘Friends’ Reunion: How the TV Show Made Them Stars and Insanely Rich

Daniel Bukszpan
Updated

Turn off your phone, ignore the doorbell and clear your social calendar. On Sunday, the cast of the beloved NBC sitcom "Friends" will reunite.

Before you get too excited, it's just a reunion, not a new episode of the show. The occasion is "An All Star Tribute To James Burrows," a two-hour NBC special celebrating the director of some of television's most iconic sitcoms, including "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Cheers" and, of course, "Friends."

The cast members have been asked about a reunion ever since the show went off the air 12 years ago, and until now, every rumor of the show's return remained a rumor. But this reunion is for real, and the fact that it's the recipient of such anticipation is a testament to its enduring popularity and its place in pop culture.

If you can't see what the fuss is all about, allow us to break it down for you. In the 10 seasons in which "Friends" aired, it consistently ranked in the top 10 of the final season ratings, even in its first season. Its popularity never waned, right up to the final episode, which pulled in an astronomical 52.5 million viewers.

In syndication, “Friends” continues to attract the same huge audiences that it did when it was hot off the presses. According to USA Today, Warner Bros. earns $1 billion annually in syndication revenue.

"Friends" went through a very messy public dispute over money and survived it unscathed. The cast demanded both salary increases and a percentage of profits from syndication, and threatened to walk if their demands weren't met. Every cast member stayed with the show and saw their salaries increase every year until each was earning $1 million per episode.

Indeed, the show was so beloved that even a public salary brawl couldn't diminish audiences' fondness for it. And to say that it was worth it for the cast would be an understatement — since they receive 2% of the show’s syndication income, every member of the core cast makes approximately $20 million a year, even if they spend that whole year doing absolutely nothing but sleeping until noon and sitting on the couch in a bathrobe, eating donuts and playing “Fallout 4.”

Now that the cast is reuniting after more than a decade, we thought it was time to look at what the people associated with the show have been doing ever since it went off the air.

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston portrayed Rachel Green, who moved to New York City and somehow supported herself on a coffee shop waitress' salary. Aniston was the breakout star of the show, and at the height of its popularity, a stroll down the streets of any major city yielded the sight of female after female sporting the haircut known as "The Rachel," so named for the 'do the actress wore.

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