How much do the Sharks make per episode? The Sony hack revealed it

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Mark Cuban on Shark Tank

It’s not as if Mark Cuban needs a handout

One thing the Sony hack has given us—in addition to the words “James Franco” dripping derisively from a sitting president’s mouth during a press conference—was some more insight into how much the Sharks are paid for each episode of ABC’s Shark Tank.

Leaked emails between Mark Cuban and the production team reveal that for Season 5, he was offered $30,000 per show with gradual pay increases over the next few years: $31,200 for season 6, and $32,488 for season 7.

At least, that was the offer.

“No chance,” Cuban wrote to those who were in on the negotiations. “This is beyond an insult and it shows no one cares about the investments i [sic] have made or the entrepreneurs.”

“You may want to start cutting me out of the promos,” said Cuban—ever the Shark. Sure enough, he got his way, and he stuck around for the fifth (his fourth) season with the show. The show is now in Season 6. We don’t know how much he’s earning, but we can be sure it’s considerably more than $31,200.

One would think that the income received from successful investments, to say nothing of the cultural currency of appearing on a popular prime-time television show, would be incentive enough to keep coming back to the Sony lot to shoot Shark Tank. But the Sharks are Sharks for a reason, and they know their value to the production and its potential for advertising income. The leaked messages prove the Sharks are compensated additionally for each show they appear in.

Because of how it’s shot, the number of episodes per season of Shark Tank is variable. In Season 4, for example, the network began by ordering 22 hours, and as the season went on and ratings proved healthy, it ordered two more, and then more, bringing the total number of episodes that season to 29. At $30,000 per airing, Cuban would have earned $870,000. (Part-time Sharks Daymond John, Barbara Corcoran, and Lori Grenier would of course earn less.)

Yet the Sharks may report to work for only a set number of days, inspecting entrepreneur after entrepreneur, and the final shows are reshuffled in editing. Adding additional episodes can be as easy as airing pitches that were originally left on the proverbial cutting room floor, so when ABC assembles more shows from existing footage, the Sharks could conceivably make another six figures of income without putting in a single second of additional work.

This isn’t the first time Cuban strong-armed the show’s producers into more favorable contracts with him. He was the one who forced the show to abandon its policy of taking a cut of all the businesses that appeared on the show. Mess with a Shark, and you get the teeth: If ABC wanted to have a guy who was a putz at negotiation, they’d have a lousy show.

You can read about more interesting facts about the show’s production quirks in my post 8 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Shark Tank’.

Business Insider, which published the emails, reported that Kevin O’Leary made $30,000 per episode as of 2014, the same amount as Dancing with the Stars‘ resident spaz, Bruno Tonioli. Elsewhere on ABC, Chris Harrison makes $50,000 per show to do The Bachelor, but then again, hosting that show is costing him his soul.

Introducing the JasonCochran.com Redesign—Now It’s Your Turn

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You may have noticed that after 200 posts and 4 1/2 years, this site has just received a refresh. The text is easier to read, the flow more airy and sweeping, and the picture of me doesn’t date from the time when we all used AOL. Lavish!

I have already been asked about who is responsible for the smart new snap. The website’s concept and hard word was done by Alfred Web Design Studio and the headshots are by Maia Rosenfeld—I heartily recommend you patronize both of them, since it’s clear that they both know what they’re doing and will make you look good, too.

The bones of the new look are now in place, but the new features will be rolling in on the sly over the coming weeks and month, so check back to see how tricksy JasonCochran.com can get.

Knowing that, I’d like to ask you a question: What else would you like to see my site be able to do, or what would you like to see more of?

Whether it’s a flashy new whistle or an elegant new feature, what do you think? It’s a rebirth sorta moment—what new kind of Jason would you like to see here?

 

Jason Cochran

Jason Cochran

 

 

How Abe Lincoln Became Our Hero Because a Cow Ate a Weed

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The grave of Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784–1818), Spencer County, Indiana

The grave of Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784–1818). Her body lies somewhere nearby, but we don’t know where. Spencer County, Indiana.

Pioneer people lived in terror of “milk sickness.” They could not figure out why you’d die if you drank some milk but not other milk. In some counties, half the population could die from it.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln’s farm was healthy, but her neighbors came down with the disease. Nancy was kind, smart, and active, always encouraging her children to read and improve their minds, and her instinct was to go help her friends despite the danger. She went to stay with them as they died. As she nursed them, she drank the milk in their house. She died, too. It was 1818, and her son Abraham was nine.

It took nearly a century for scientists to realize it was caused by cows eating wild white snakeroot—and that the cure was eating sugar, a rarity in Indiana at the time (the locals have certainly made up for that with their current diets).

Abraham Lincoln had suffered the first shocking death of a loved one, and at a critical age. The trauma shaped him to be the compassionate, literate, but emotionally detached man the country would later need him to be. All because a cow ate a weed.

Guidebook of the Year

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Me, Butterbeer, impish pride

Me, Butterbeer, impish pride

I have received the Gold award for Guidebook of the Year in the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, which is presented by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. The competition is judged by faculty members of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It is considered by many, including me, to be the highest honor the travel writing industry bestows.

Frommer's 2014 EasyGuide to Walt Disney World & Orlando, by Jason Cochran

Frommer’s 2014 EasyGuide to Walt Disney World & Orlando, by Jason Cochran

The book that won is my guide to Walt Disney World, Universal, and Orlando (right) that I wrote about on this website when it was released. The next edition comes out this fall.

I previously won the Gold a few years ago for the other destination for which I write an annual guidebook, London.

Writing these books means a lot of footwork, a lot of hotel-hopping, a lot of dinners alone, countless hours at a computer, and a lot of sweating over the details for months. There are many times when I doubt it’s worth it. Life’s funny, though—sometimes you find out what’s worth it all at once, and it comes when you least expect it.

I really don’t know what to do with the information that I have now won the Lowell Thomas Award twice, one for both of the books I do. I am grateful, of course.

Thanks to the SATW, to the Frommers, and to the people who have bought my work and enjoy it.

So here’s with a photo of me at Walt Disney World when I was about 5 or 6. If I had known that one day I would be paid to go there and ride the rides, I don’t think I would have survived to 7.

JasonAge4Disney

Hollywood studios should be National Historic Landmarks

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Stage 28 at Universal Studios

Historic Stage 28 at Universal Studios in Universal City still contains a set from 1925’s “The Phantom of the Opera”—and it’s doomed. (Credit: NBCUniversal)

Universal Studios in Los Angeles plans to demolish the 90-year-old Stage 28, one of the most storied on its lot. Stage 28 contains a wonder of American cultural history: an original set from the 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera. That picture is considered so iconic that it was long ago sanctified by the National Film Registry.

Universal, which says it will try to preserve “much” of the set, wants to tear the stage down to make more room for its theme park; one of the reasons Stage 28 is no longer viable for filming in the first place is because Universal built a cacophonous thrill ride (based on the Transformers franchise) right next to it. Lately, Stage 28 has mostly been used to film special effects since those don’t usually require live sound.

Other indelible films that were created in Universal’s Stage 28, soon to be erased in favor of another ephemeral thrill ride, no doubt, include Dracula, The Bride of Frankenstein, the interior Bates Family scenes of Psycho and The Sting.

There are very few other patches of earth in the United States where so many historic things have happened, things that nearly all Americans witnessed and can tell you about. The White House, the Capitol—where else do so many familiar events share a common location?

I’m depressed. Broadway theatres are registered for their cultural value even though they continue to require rent (the New Amsterdam, the Biltmore), David Letterman’s Ed Sullivan Theatre is designated, and even factories can be preserved for their importance. Yet no Los Angeles-area studios are listed as National Historic Landmarks. It’s time for all of Hollywood to embrace the fact it’s an essential thread in the fabric of American culture. Hollywood must stop hiding in its own Bermuda Triangle of history.

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Think times are bad? Here’s some perspective

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Think we have it bad? In times past, a lady risked getting felt up by skeletons on the street.

Think we have it bad? In times past, ladies sometimes got felt up by skeletons on the street.

I’ve heard a lot of despair lately. Gaza, Ferguson, Ukraine, Ebola, beheadings, Robin Williams, racists, rapists, riots, killer cops, white supremacists. Everyone seems to think things could barely get worse.

The world has its troubles. There are many reasons to try to help. But don’t be tricked. The world always had troubles.

Social media pushes the negativity in our faces. It makes distant misery seem as immediate as if it happened next door. Things have been much, much worse. Remember the ritual of life.

The Year 541 saw the outbreak of the Justinian Plague. Half the world population died. Imagine that: Half the people you know, suddenly gone, and you left convinced you would die next. It’s inconceivable. They thought the world was ending. Understandably, civilization trudged through the years that followed.

In 1347, the Black Plague, or the Bubonic Plague, began its reign. Depending on where you lived, one-third to 75% of your town died. Imagine that. Some people rushed to God, convinced it was His wrath. Many more rushed to hedonism, convinced morality was folly.  The Crusades. The Inquisitions.

The Great War: 16 million dead—16 million; just think of that—the loss of an entire generation, and for what? And on its heels, the airborne influenza epidemic of 1918, which it’s now thought grabbed another 100 million people, or 5% of the world’s population. Predominantly, the dead were the young.  So some 116 million didn’t make it out of the 1910s, many of them never to marry or start a new generation.

Then World War Two. 65 million dead. 65 million, and that’s only a guess. Only a fraction of that was the Holocaust. Major ancient cities were laid to waste, heritage wiped from existence.

Numbers are one thing. To get my point, simply imagine how people must have felt when they were living through those cataclysms. When you abruptly bury half the people you know, when your town and the farms that feed you are laid to waste, when the only constants are decay, chaos, and hunger—in comparison, it makes tangling with a terrorist group seem like a day at the country club.

Whenever you get stressed, think of the bad times in history—and imagine how hopeless people must have felt then. It’s strangely uplifting. Mental health through schadenfreude.

Perspective tells us that ours is not the only fight, and ours is not the worst one—not by a million miles. Turn around and look at history instead of nurturing the anxiety on your Facebook feed.

We can deal with some rockets and roadside bombs. We can get through suicides and executions and the rigged American system. In context, Ebola is a blip.

We must take care of each other. We have lived through worse. If we lose perspective on the big picture, then our chaos really can get out of hand and become a disaster. We must remember how bad it can be if we’re going to keep a lid on things.

This summer has seen some terrible losses. There will be more. But you can do it. Take the long view. You’re all right. Let’s keep this ship afloat.

A little reminder about what "bad" really is. (Detail: The Triumph of Death (1562) by Pieter Breugel the Elder)

What “rough times” can really be. (Detail: The Triumph of Death (1562) by Pieter Breugel the Elder)

Awesome photos of Walt Disney World from the early ’70s

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My mother recently uncovered a treasure trove of family snapshots from our visits to the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in the early 1970s. What my parents lacked in photographic ability, they made up for in a knack for capturing what would one day be incredibly rare views. There’s some real gold in here—much of what you’re about to see is forgotten, extinct, or covered up forever, from the built-upon West Center Street to views of Tomorrowland before Space Mountain.

It’s bizarre and inspiring. How were they to know that one day, I would grow up to write the Frommer’s guide to Walt Disney World?

This slideshow is reddened and bleached by the years, but is a miraculous time machine nonetheless:

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Why I’m Leaving Facebook—And the Reason May Surprise You

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If you clicked on this because of that dumb teaser headline, that’s why I’m leaving Facebook.

It’s not totally because the privacy concerns. Yes, they are annoying, particularly when the company keeps nibbling away at both its promises and your ability to choose what to make public. When we signed up for social media, we all agreed to sell ourselves a little in the bargain, but Facebook keeps rewriting the contracts to steal a few more ounces of flesh. I expected the company to get greedy. That’s what companies tend to do. That’s not why I’m leaving.

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I’m the guest on this week’s Amateur Traveler podcast about Orlando

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The award-winning travel podcast Amateur Traveler invited me to talk about Orlando’s past, present, and future and to share some of my best tips for visiting the theme parks.

As usual, I have a lot to say about the place, some of which may ruffle some feathers. It made for an interesting episode.

My next Orlando book is just now going to the publisher and will be published on November 4.

Although it’s a podcast, you can watch it—there are images matched to the things I talk about.

Amateur Traveler Episode 431 – Travel to Orlando, Florida

Frommer's 2014 EasyGuide to Walt Disney World & Orlando, by Jason Cochran

Frommer’s 2014 EasyGuide to Walt Disney World & Orlando, by Jason Cochran (click to buy)

Erasing Lefcourt: Historic Art Deco ceiling ripped out of 1928 building

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Gorgeous Art Deco lobby ceiling, right? The 28-story building was built in 1928 at Seventh Avenue and 25th Street as the Lefcourt Clothing Center to serve the garment industry. Its builder was Abraham E Lefcourt, who rose from newspaper boy on the Lower East Side to become the Donald Trump of Roaring ’20s Manhattan. He owned 24 buildings, and he grandly affixed his own name to many of them to secure his own reputation.

In 1928, when he was worth $100 million, he made his first foray into construction. The Garment Center was designed by Eli Jacques Kahn (the Costas Kondylis of his day—workmanlike, prolific, essentially uncool) and its touches were designed to impress—Deco became a Lefcourt hallmark—and it mostly served men’s and boys’ clothing manufacturers.

It was such a success he ended up building six more skyscrapers—never allowing people to forget that he used to sell papers on the corner. He even founded his own bank.

LEfourtBefore

And then he lost it all. First, the Depression ruined him. Then, in 1930, his son Alan died of anemia, aged just 17.  Brokenhearted, Lefcourt named his latest building the Lefcourt-Alan Building in his honor. Located north of Times Square on Broadway, it was sanctified with a bronze of his lost boy looking out from a position above its entrance. (more…)