Lisa Kudrow says Friends still pays her $20 million a year, and the same is true for each of the sitcom’s main cast members. The long-running NBC comedy may have ended in 2004, but its reruns and licensing deals still make it one of the most profitable TV shows ever.
She shared the figure in an interview with The Times and credited the show’s staying power to the people behind it. That is a polite way of saying the rerun machine worked, the audience never really went away, and Hollywood still hasn’t found many sitcoms with that kind of afterlife.
How Friends keeps paying
The key number here is simple: $20 million a year for each of the main actors. That puts Friends in a tiny club of old TV series that still function like financial engines, thanks to licensing, reruns, and a fan base that never stopped treating the show like comfort food with a very long shelf life.
For streaming services, that kind of durability is both inspiring and annoying. Inspiring, because it shows the value of a perfectly calibrated ensemble comedy; annoying, because the industry has spent years chasing a replacement and mostly produced forgettable content with better algorithms.
Why the sitcom still outlasts newer hits
Kudrow’s comment also underlines an old Hollywood truth: the biggest money is often made after the applause ends. A handful of classic shows continue to outperform many newer productions because they are easy to rewatch, widely licensed, and instantly recognizable across generations.
That is the real lesson buried in her quote. Friends was not just popular; it became a repeatable product, which is why its stars can still cash checks that would make most current TV casts stare at their agents in disbelief.
Can TV produce another Friends-level hit?
The obvious open question is whether modern TV will ever produce another comedy with this kind of staying power. The answer looks uncomfortable for studios: probably not soon, unless they find another cast, another writers’ room, and another cultural moment that lines up this perfectly.