An international Columbo fan once told me that Peter Falk's Columbo contract dwarfed the salary of all the other NBC Mystery Movie stars. He said Peter was earning 4-5 times more than what Dennis Weaver (McCloud) and Rock Hudson (McMillan & Wife) earned and that caused all sorts of problems for the network.

When I looked into this subject, I found inconsistent figures. I read Peter's Columbo contract was $500,000 per episode near the end of its NBC run. Some estimates were much lower.

Does anyone know what Peter was earning per episode relative to Dennis Weaver and Rock Hudson? I'm asking because I heard several times that the other stars wanted to be paid a per episode salary within $25,000 of Peter Falk's, but that would have blown the production costs sky high.

Did the supposed pay discrepancy have anything to do with the shows ending?

i tried to search for the different salaries of hudson, weaver and peter, but i came up with nothing.
though like you, i read of peter's salary being anywhere from $250k to $500k an episode.

as far as the show ending because of monetary reasons, this is a quote from the wonderful 'the columbo phile' by mark dawidziak..

"in early 1978, peter falk told a reporter that it was 'a flip of the coin' as to whether there would be another season of columbo. but the coin had been deemed too expensive by nbc, which no longer cared to pick up the budget overruns. there was no official cancellation notice. the series was just quietly discontinued."

also from 'the columbo phile', the 5th season's 'last salute to the commodore' was supposed to be the end of the columbo series, but peter was 'lured back' for season 6 with a reported $300k an episode.

one more quote from 'the columbo phile'...

"during the third season, falk's salary was reported to be $100,000 per episode. it was boosted to $132,000 for the fourth season. by 1976, it would jump to $300,000 per episode, the highest paycheck in the business."

At the beginning of the NBC Mystery Movie, Rock Hudson was reportedly the highest-paid actor on television, at $100,000 an episode. So at first, it was Falk playing catch-up. I do not know what Hudson's raises, if any, were over the next five years.

Thanks for the quotes from Columbo Phile and the tidbit about Rock Hudson being the highest-paid at the beginning of Mystery Movie.

I vaguely recall reading about Rock Hudson's salary going up to $250,000 per two-hour episode at some point and if Peter eventually went up to as high as $500,000 per, then I can understand why the shows got too costly to keep. On the other hand, if there was really a discrepancy between Peter and the others in terms of pay after '76, McCloud and McMillan shouldn't have been too costly.

For context, Carroll O'Connor had to go on strike to earn a million dollars a year in 1974. When he succeeded, he became the highest-paid actor on TV, but that was for 24 episodes a year of the highest rated show. The Mystery Movie stars were a much less efficient value because it took four of them to make 24 episodes and the show was successful, but not nearly as successful as All in the Family, and yet their combined salaries were well in excess of a million a year.

Found two old NY Times articles this morning. One lists Falk's salary at the end of the series as 333,000 per episode. Makes sense, as that matches Dawidziak's "over 300,000" figure and puts his 6th season total salary at a million dollars. Maybe they all made a million dollars for that year, but Falk only had to do three shows and the others had to do 6? That's just a guess.

The other article refers to Susan Saint James' contract renegotiation for the fifth season of McMillan and Wife, resulting in her salary going from 25,000 per episode to 75,000 per episode. She would be making much less than Rock Hudson, so it doesn't exactly apply to this discussion, but I thought it was interesting, and also shed some light on the increasing production costs of the NBC Mystery Movie.

Thanks, Lee. I think your NY Times articles put a source to what I have heard many times before. The Susan Saint James article is relevant too because many people think that Peter Falk's salary increases drove the production costs too high across all three shows.

The real salary figure is often half of the reported number. If Peter was reported to be making $300,000, in reality it might have been $150,000. Still a lot of money back then. The ultra high-end Fifth Avenue apartments in New York that now sell for $25-30 million were under $200,000 in the mid-'70s.

I wonder if the per episode salaries of Falk, Hudson, Saint James and Weaver were fixed to, say, $500,000 per season, whether the shows could have continued.

Also, the actors would have been entitled to residual payments. In those days, it wasn't in perpetuity yet, but over the course of the first five or six re-airings (and all these shows have had dozens, if not hundreds), the actors would make the equivalent of their full salary over again. Of course, the studio still profits more from reruns than first-runs because there are no more production costs, just the residual payments and administrative costs.

I found one more contemporary article from the fourth season, claiming Falk's salary was 125,000 per show. From these various sources, it seems like Falk was eventually given parity with Rock Hudson in the fourth and fifth years, and then he seems to have started make a lot more money per episode in the sixth season. Many series contracts run for five initial years with set raises, and then after five years, it's open negotiation time. Some actors (like Carroll O'Connor, Peter Falk, Larry Hagman and some others) are able to get higher-than-planned increases during those five years. But the sixth season would probably have been the first opportunity for Falk to make more than Rock Hudson with Hudson's much more favorable initial contract. (Susan Saint James's departure also makes sense at that point. After five years, she could walk away if Universal would not meet her new salary demands without any chance of being sued for breach of contract.)

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Lee, I saw a copy of Rock Hudson's 1976 contract on a simple google search. It mentions the sum payable to Mammoth Films c/o Rock's agency for supplying Rock's services increases to $125,000 per McMillan episode. I guess that's Rock's pay from Universal per episode. Am I reading the contract right, Lee?

At that time I would guess Rock's published salary to be $250,000 per episode. If Peter was getting $300,000 according to the press, he might really be at around $150,000 and an equivalent in residuals to get him up to $300k.

As you said, the studio still makes more from the re-runs, so $100,000 to $150,000 in guaranteed salary for the three stars doesn't seem too pricey. If Peter was really making $333,000 salary, much less $500,000, then I can understand the cost concern.

Sorry to keep asking about this, but I have heard countless times that Peter's salary increases/demands killed all three shows and I'd like to find out once and for all if that is indeed what occurred.

You certainly seem to be reading it correctly, as far as I can tell. Excellent point about the doubling of reported salaries. Maybe they are all intended to include residual payments in the number?

I don't believe it could have been Falk's salary that was the death knell for the NBC Mystery Movie, though. After the Mystery Movie and all its elements were cancelled, Universal produced and NBC bought five more Columbos for the following year. Falk certainly did not take a pay cut, so it seems that Columbo's costs were the only ones deemed justified. Columbo's ratings had always been higher than those of the other series. Maybe by the sixth season, the gap had just widened even further. Or, Rock Hudson and Dennis Weaver negotiated salaries that were more than the studio thought was worth it for a seventh season.

Has anyone heard even a rumor about Dennis Weaver's salary at any point? We can guess about it based on the others' but I have never heard or read even a hint.

I think it makes sense now, Lee! With your help, I think I've pieced it together. The reported salaries the press used all included residuals, which explains why Rock's actual contract only specified $125,000.

I think it also explains why Peter's salary increases did not kill off the others. As you said, Columbo was the most highly rated and it was also more popular abroad, though I think McMillan & Wife was the biggest hit of the three in the UK. That may have influenced the show's residuals relative to McCloud and McMillan and this boosted his overall pay above the others.

Also, in the '73 or 74, the residuals payment system was renegotiated to give actors payouts in perpetuity. Previously, the residuals ended after the tenth re-run of an episode. Still, ten airings of McMillan & Wife, Columbo and McCloud would probably have added a big chunk of earnings for all the stars. The president of the Screen Actors Guild at the time was none other than Dennis Weaver!

After Dennis Weaver died, I read a lot about his environmentally-friend home in Colorado for my work. I also read about his other properties in California and the articles specifically mentioned that the increased residuals, which he helped to renegotiate, helped him acquire the extra properties.

It is rather odd that Dennis Weaver's salary seemed like such a big secret. I think it is safe to say he cleaned up on residuals, but I haven't read anything at all about what earned for McCloud. Strange.

I think you have worked it out. The higher costs of Columbo would indeed have been offset by the higher syndication fees. For most of their histories since their network runs, McCloud and McMillan have been syndicated in rotation with each other, and often Banacek too, whereas Columbo usually airs as a separate entity. Since there are not substantially more Columbo episodes than either of the others, it must just be a more valuable syndication property.

Also from The Columbo Phile, the cost overruns for Columbo's last season, the one independent of the NBC Mystery Movie, were partially paid by the network, setting a precedent that would stand for many years afterward. Universal said the show was too expensive to make, but NBC wanted it enough that they paid that much more than the agreed licensing fee.

I wonder if Dennis Weaver's salary was especially secret, or just not especially newsworthy. He would not have made as much as Rock Hudson at the beginning or Peter Falk at the end, so maybe the media simply wasn't that interested. Usually only the especially high salaries get reported. I know a little about Dennis Weaver, too. Quite a guy.

In discussing salaries, let's also remember inflation. http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
These guys were making a lot of money, especially with residual payments included.

OK...now that you solved that one, I have one more for you. Guest stars? Did they all make the same set salary, as on Batman? Or did each star have his or her own appearance fee? Hard to imagine Eddie Albert making the same as Susan Clark for their appearances (just based on their fame at that point, no disrespect to Ms. Clark intended).

I finally took the multiple Re: out of the subject of this reply.

It is possible that Weaver was able to keep quiet his salary because of his status at SAG. Also, as e wrote, was McCloud really that popular? I agree they were all making big bucks at the time, especially Rock at first. Rock Hudson probably wasn't making more than $500,000 per movie when he transitioned to McMillan & Wife.

Lee, we forgot James Stewart. He was getting $1 million for The Jimmy Stewart Show and a similar sum for Hawkins. By the mid-1960s, Rock was a more bankable box office star than Jimmy Stewart.

I don't think guest stars on the Mystery Movies all received the similar pay. The bigger names like Donald Pleasance, Honor Blackman, Janet Leigh, Robert Culp and others got more than basic fixed wage. I'm quite sure of it because I know I read about an actor in the mid-'70s who got ill but paid his medical and insurance bills from doing guest appearances where he negotiated his fee. I can't remember exactly who it was. It was not a household name, though it was not a complete no-name actor either.

The reason Hudson and Stewart were doing TV was that they were both on the wane at the box office. Hudson had not appeared in the Quigley Top 10 Box Office Stars since 1963 and Stewart since 1964. Ironically, they both disliked doing television for the same reason. After the more leisurely pace of moviemaking, they hated the rush of TV shooting. Stewart must have REALLY hated it, to walk away from that much money for Hawkins. (The sitcom was cancelled, so it wasn't his choice that time!)

As for McCloud's popularity, I started a little research today, checking the weekly Nielsen ratings and matching them to which segment aired that week. For the first three seasons of the show, Columbo is the most popular, but it is not a runaway. And of McCloud, McMillan and Hec Ramsey, McMillan is actually the least consistent. Ratings also got worse as it went along. By the third season, one episode was not even in the top 50 shows for the week. McCloud was quite popular, which may be the reason it jumped from two five-episode orders to a nine-episode order in the fourth year. Some McClouds outdrew some Columbos. Hec Ramsey was a very strong ratings winner for three quarters of its tenure, and then the last couple of episodes dropped suddenly. It certainly could have continued, though, were it not for contractual issues.

It wasn't my express purpose, but I did keep seeing the other NBC Mystery Movie ratings. Banacek was very successful, often beating the Sunday Mystery Movie, or at least coming close if it was a Columbo that week. The other Wednesday Mystery Movies were pretty disastrous, though. And since you brought it up, Hawkins was pretty highly rated, too.

I realize I was unclear about my guest star issue. I certainly don't think Columbo was paying the guest stars union scale. If it were a fixed fee, it would be a relatively high one. Just wondered if they had a rule because of the uniformly famous guests. Batman would be an example, where every guest villain made $1250 per half hour, no matter who they were. (In the third year, I think they got $2000.) I did read in a reference book that The Name of the Game, the Universal/NBC ancestor of the NBC Mystery Movie had a $7500 limit on guest star salaries, but that would be different. The guest stars could make LESS than $7500, just not more.

It does surprise me McMillan & Wife was inconsistent with its ratings. I too have read that Rock wasn't too fond of TV, but he had been made an offer that he would have been an idiot to turn down. Rock and Jimmy did have contracts that specified they would not have to work late on certain days.

Lee, I did find a nugget of information about guest stars on the Mystery Movie. I found a snippet from a book entitled, "Acting Professionally". It said that Rock Hudson received $75,000 for the McMillan & Wife pilot. In the same sentence, it say guest stars frequently get more than $25,000. I think it is safe to assume that this means guest stars on McMillan & Wife, McCloud and Columbo too. Maybe the limit increased from the time of 'The Name of the Game'.

Google Book is pretty useful for finding out old TV facts. Wish I had found out sooner. Some of the sources are literally three or four line snippets from one page of the books though.

Google Books is great for that stuff! That's where I found the Name of the Game snippet. That Guest Star amount makes more sense to me, as some of these people just would not have shown up for much less.

Hudson does seem to have embraced series television, albeit reluctantly, as he stayed with it until the end of his life. According to his as-told-to biography, he actually revised his opinion of McMillan and Wife before he died, watching the reruns and thinking they were better than he remembered.

When Stewart quit Hawkins, he quit television, too, except for his variety show appearances. He said he didn't think television directors could be any good under the time and budget constraints and he only liked to work with great directors.

Rock Hudson had feature film clauses in his McMillan & Wife contract with Universal. I read he had as many as three films guaranteed, though the only one I know of is 'Showdown'. If he really did have three, this effectively added $750,000 to $1,000,000 for his TV deals. A lucrative reason for him to do TV indeed.

After McMillan, Hudson did primarily TV if I'm not mistaken. He did a few movies here and there, perhaps related to the old McMillan & Wife contract clauses? He was in 'The Ambassador' with Robert Mitchum. When he died, some of his friends were wondering why he worked so much even after he became ill because he was very well-off financially by then. My family and I had just returned from a vacation in France when Rock Hudson chartered an Air France 747 to take him home.

He did do several more, like Embryo and The Mirror Crack'd, but I don't think any of them after Showdown (I like that movie, by the way) were Universal movies. Besides the money, I think he wanted to do TV in the first place, and then later on, because he didn't want to retire and his movie career was in terrible shape. In the five years before he started McMillan, he really only had one hit movie, and the movies during and after McMillan were not financial successes either. What he really came to enjoy was musical theater. He toured in I Do, I Do during a McMillan hiatus and then Camelot and On The Twentieth Century afterward.

There was a cute story about the opening night of his Camelot production. Liz Taylor was with him in his dressing room, and the phone rang. Liz picked it up, spoke to the caller for a moment and then handed the phone to Hudson, saying, "It's your wife." He was baffled until he took the receiver and heard Susan Saint James wishing him luck.

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There are many sources on the particular five-year contracts in television. For instance, Rock Hudson's initial McMillan & Wife contract was signed in April 1971. Five-years, almost to the day, he signed a new one. Peter Falk's deal would have been similiar. A link to the Hudson contract is in the tread. I believe this practice is still used today and I think David McCallum on NCIS was on a five-yr. contract that was renewed recently.

Are you referring to the scene at the end of season five, episode six ("Last Salute To The Commodore") where Columbo asks Sgt. Kramer (Bruce Kirby) for a match? Kramer says that he thought Columbo was quitting ... Columbo laughs, denies it in a strange way and rows away in the boat.

Yes, I think that scene pretty much sums up the whole mood of the film.

There are several contemporary 1976 news pieces on the "last" Columbo. Falk and others gave interviews and had journalists to the set, giving the impression that Last Salute was the final episode, or at least the final regular episode. Falk did seem open to the idea of one a year. He mentioned an idea he ascribed to McGoohan, to the effect of Columbo traveling the world, solving international crimes. His example is Columbo getting off a camel, taking off a scarf covering his face and asking for the nearest oasis. I leave it to you all to decide how serious they were.

Do you have precise references?

Yes, but I need to obtain them from a source to which I will have access tomorrow morning. I will provide them to you then.

Thank you.

There were a few other brief mentions of Columbo ending its run that year, but the big feature that had stuck in my mind was this one:

CLOSING OUT COLUMBO
Cecil Smith. Los Angeles Times Feb 15, 1976. p. T4 (2 pages)

Some telling quotes from Falk in this one, too:

A rich Falk leaves 'Columbo' behind
Chicago Tribune Mar 5, 1976. p. B12 (1 page)

And here is a little insight into how and why it returned for the sixth season:

MOVIE CALL SHEET; Columbo: To Be or Not to Be
MARY MURPHY. Los Angeles Times May 17, 1976. p. F11 (1 page)

I take it that is a good thing?

Always when I use 14 smileys.
I was looking for such articles, and I'll read them as soon as I have laid my hands on them.
You've been a great help.

If you make your e-mail address available on here somehow, I think I can send them to you, if that's easier.

Sure. Here it is.

"For $100,000 you don't kill off Rock Hudson."

But I also agree that Peter Falk was not responsible for the overall death of the Mystery Movie. I remember reading somewhere that by the later seasons the popularity of "Columbo" was such that it kept the other Mystery Movie elements from being canceled a little earlier than they may have otherwise been.

I have also always questioned how popular "McCloud" actually was. For example, in 1972-73 (the highest rated year for the Mystery Movie) there were 8 "Columbo" movies, 7 "McMillan and Wife" movies, but only 5 "McCloud" movies. So it didn't appear to be valued too highly by the network, and I myself have only been able to sit through about two or three episodes.

Here is what I found...(Some telecasts are missing and others are rated vaguely, as in Not in Top 20, because I just used the LA Times archives and there was inconsistent reportage of the Nielsens.)

First season of the NBC Mystery Movie:
Columbo's first six telecasts placed 5th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 17th and 5th among their respective week's programs. Couldn't find the ratings for Blueprint for Murder.

McCloud: 13th, Not in the Top 20, Not in the Top 10, 15th, 20th, 20th and again, no info for the last episode.

McMillan: 10th, Not in the Top 20, 19th, 20th, Not in the Top 20, 19th, Not in the Top 20.

Columbo is clearly the most popular here.

Second Season:

Columbo: 14th, 2nd, 4th, 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 5th, Double Shock was N/A

McCloud: Not in the Top 20, 5th, N/A, 6th, 33rd. The first rerun in April, however, was 5th for the week.

McMillan: 16th, 10th, 26th, 36th (aired on Wednesday), 12th, 22nd, N/A

Hec Ramsey: 17th, 13th, 11th, 40th, 50th

Third Season (Many weeks were not listed for some reason):

Columbo: 18th, 7th, 4th, 13th, 11th, 1st (Swan Song was the only Mystery Movie episode in the 6 years to rate first of the week), N/A

McCloud: 8th, 6th, 13th, 6th, 12th

McMillan: 22nd, 10th, 58th, N/A, N/A, N/A

Hec Ramsey: 12th, N/A, N/A, Not Top 20, Not Top 20

Even with the missing data, it is pretty clear why McCloud saw its next season order nearly double. It's average (bearing in mind the ratings for A Friend in Deed are not available) is the same as Columbo's.

Fourth Season:

Columbo: 9th, 10th, Not top 20, N/A, N/A, N/A

McCloud: Not top 10, Not top 10 but in the top 40, 20th, Not top 20, N/A, N/A, 18th, Not Top 20, N/A

McMillan: 18th, N/A, 16th, 7th, Not top 10, N/A

Amy Prentiss: 18th, N/A, N/A

So much missing data here that it is hard to generalize, except McMillan has certainly picked up.

Fifth Season:

The NBC Mystery Movie as a whole plummeted in the fifth season. Except for the last two telecasts (McCloud and Columbo), there was data for every week. The only episode in the Top 20 was McCloud on October 19, 1975, when it placed 6th for the week. McCoy premiered at 56th place. Also, contrary to Dawidziak's statement that Columbo beat Kojak in all six "cigar-to-lollipop" confrontations, A Matter of Honor was rated lower than Kojak that night. The other five occasions are not determinable from the news reports.

Sixth Season:

The Columbo premiere rated 3rd for the week, and the subsequent Quincy episode the same night was 4th. The McMillan premiere was 12th for the week. No other episodes made the top 20 this year and Lanigan's Rabbi actually premiered at 62.

Seventh Season:

No NBC Mystery Movie, but the only one of the five Columbos to make the Top 20 was Try and Catch Me, at 15th for the week.

The ratings from the fifth year onward were not necessarily bad, just not very distinguished, especially considering the cost of the shows. My guess is that there would not have been a sixth season, or those five additional Columbos, had the shows been airing on CBS or ABC. NBC was in serious ratings trouble, so the middling Mystery Movie numbers were probably the best they thought they could do. In fact, the sixth season McMillan premiere (12th place for the week) was NBC's highest rated program all week.

But to get back to the original point, McCloud was comparably popular to McMillan and Wife at the beginning of the series, and eventually eclipsed it, approaching Columbo in its popularity.

I'll keep looking, but if anyone can get more data, either the missing weeks or the actual numbers when all I found was the top 10 or 20, that would be very helpful.

Oops! I forgot to add in that Publish or Perish, which aired in the third season on a Friday night, did not place in the top 20 of the week, meaning that in the third season, McCloud actually had the best average rating place of any of the Mystery Movies.

Great statistics, Lee! I was a pretty big McCloud fan. The episodes, in my opinion, were pretty consistent. Aside from 'Barefoot Stewardesses Caper', which re-ran over and over when I was a kid, I don't think there was an episode I really disliked.

Dennis Weaver was pretty well paid towards the end of his run on Gunsmoke. I'm just speculating because I have read absolutely nothing about his Mystery Movie deal, but Universal must have paid him a decent wage to get him to do McCloud.

I like McCloud, too. Not as much as Columbo certainly, or even McMillan, but definitely a very good show. I'm sure Weaver was well-paid, at least as much as Peter Falk got for Columbo at the beginning.

Happy New Year, by the way, to Carsini and anyone else who has stuck with this discussion this long!

Happy New Year to you too, Lee and everyone else. Thanks for all your contribution. I discovered this forum only a few weeks ago, but it has been very enjoyable already.

I've found this thread very interesting, and enlightening. Although I had (somewhat vaguely) recalled old news articles referring to Peter Falk as the "highest-paid actor in prime time TV" (overlapping with some other recollections of articles citing Dean Martin -- yes, Dino! -- as the highest-paid person on TV), I didn't have any historical data on the specific numbers. So, thanks again for the research.

I believe it was reported (although, again, I don't have the numbers), either toward the end of the "Mystery Movie" series or (more likely) into the ABC Specials, that Peter was getting more than $1 MILLION per episode. That's the figure that I now cannot find documentation for, although I do recall it, and that there were wails and cries from the network that was (OBVIOUSLY!) earning much more than the expenses of "Columbo", for the privilege of broadcasting it.

Anyway, as Peter has often said about getting cast as Columbo --"It's not like getting cancer." Which, as a cancer victim, he ought to know. I think it's fantastic that, in a world where most big-shot actors find it convenient to either disavow, or to morbidly exploit their youthful problems, Peter always was forward-looking, or funny, or just dismissive about such a profound physical problem.

Dean Martin was unquestionably the highest paid performer in television for most of the nine years of his regular series. At the same time, depending on what stage of the series you examine, he shared between 10 and 50 percent with Executive Producer Greg Garrison, so his net pay was a bit less than it appeared. But the bigger distinction is in the number of episodes. Dean Martin surely made more money per year than Rock Hudson in 1971, say, but Hudson made much more per episode. By the time Peter Falk would have been earning more than Rock Hudson, Dean Martin was not on the air every week anymore. But Carroll O'Connor was in the same position. He made more money per year from the show, but far less per episode.

As for the wailing and crying, I don't think NBC ever really cared about the salaries because, as you say, they were making a very good advertising profit on it. Universal, however, had to pay the salaries and, as was usual in television by the 1970s, was probably running at a loss on each episode.

I don't remember exact figures either, but I think the ABC years were VERY lucrative for Peter Falk, even compared to the later NBC years.

Lee, this ratings information is very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to do the research and post it.

After "Columbo," I always thought "McMillan and Wife" was the most entertaining of the remaining mystery movies. Maybe someday I will give "McCloud" another chance, if it ever makes it back to reruns.

Some additional tidbits...

In the TV Directory by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh there is a listing of the highest rated movies on television. The 10/27/74 broadcast of "The Poseidon Adventure" and the 2/29/76 broadcast of "The Sound of Music" are on this list. 10/27/74 was also the original airdate for "By Dawn's Early Light," and 2/29/76 was the original airdate for "Now You See Him."

This may help explain why "Negative Reaction" made the top ten on 10/6/74, but "By Dawn's Early Light" didn't even make the top twenty. As for "Now You See Him," it aired during a period where the Mystery Movie was already losing steam and after a series of three really bizarre "Columbo" episodes, and I'm sure being up against "The Sound of Music" didn't help either!

It is funny, though, to think that some really highly regarded episodes like "By Dawn's Early Light" didn't attract huge audiences on their first airing, when lesser episodes like "Dead Weight" and "Fade in to Murder" made the top five. Of course, viewers had no way of knowing going into an episode if it was going to be a "good one" or a "bad one," and there are a wide variety of circumstances that result in one particular episode's rating.

McCloud, I think, was more interested in a realistic tone than the others. Ironically, the show with a guy chasing New York criminals around on a horse was the most down-to-earth show! Although, again, I do like McCloud and find it a refreshing counterpoint, I prefer the stylized art of Columbo and the light fantasy touch of McMillan and Wife.

I noticed the counterprogramming to Columbo, also. ABC and CBS were merciless, especially on premiere nights. If you look at all the season premieres forthe second through fifth seasons, you see that the ratings are lower than usual for Columbo. They would counterprogram big movies, and to some extent it worked. By the time of Now You See Him, it probably wouldn't have been in the Top 20 anyway, but I'll bet it made a big difference to By Dawn's Early Light.

Ted, I don't think Peter ever got near $1 million per episode for the ABC run. The most I've read about him getting was $500,000 in 1978 and that number only appears in one source. Most published sources suggest low $300,000 was his peak NBC salary. He might have gotten $500,000 per episode in the late-'80s on ABC.

Again, the actual salary he was making may only be $150-175,000. Just found in google books that Rock Hudson was on a six-episode, $1.6 million contract for 'McMillan' after Susan Saint James left. It works out to $266,667 per episode. His contract in reality only specified $125,000 per episode.

Lee, I found one source suggesting Dennis Weaver was making $200,000 per McCloud. The same source listed Rock Hudson at $350,000 per McMillan & Wife episode. I haven't seen these figures elsewhere, but it is the first time I have seen Weaver's salary even speculated on. Here is the source:

http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateMystery/tv.html

I even saw one source that claimed Rock Hudson was making less money than "the well-connected" Susan Saint James!! Funny how things can get twisted. Nice find on the Dennis Weaver estimate, but since the same source quotes a very-hard-to-believe 350,000 for Rock Hudson, I wonder how true it is.

Until you brought this up, it never occurred to me that many of these reported salaries would include residual payments, but it seems pretty clear that is the case here. The contract you found is really valuable in setting the parameters. We KNOW Rock Hudson made 125,000 an episode, not including reruns, for the sixth season. We also know he was making less before that. What puzzles me is how the renegotiated SAG contract affects these estimates. With a guaranteed schedule of payments for 6-10 reruns, they could add that to the initial payment and come up with a total value to the actor. After the actors were entitled to indefinite residual payments, how could they come up with a per episode figure?

I've seen that "well-connected" Susan Saint James claim myself! Baffling. I have read Rock was nearly broke when he started to do TV, which I don't believe to be the case, but getting less than Susan is unbelievable.

I took the Dennis Weaver estimate with a huge grain of salt and I do eat a lot of salt in my diet to begin with! The highest estimate for Rock Hudson I've seen was published in a book about Martha Raye.

Some books claim Rock Hudson was paid $100,000 to $120,000 per episode right from the beginning of McMillan & Wife. Another estimated $75,000 for the pilot and $50,000 per episode for the series after it had been picked up. The sources that suggested $50,000 also mentioned he had a guarantee that his income for the season would not be less than $500,000, working about to around $83,000+ per episode. I think that is more believable, but perhaps the $100,000 or even $120,000 for '71 or '72 are roughly correct also.

Not sure about the infinite residuals and how it would be factored into the per episode pay. I would assume the total pay would be estimated based on the residuals paid to the star covering re-runs for that season only (or the studio's accounting fiscal year) then added to his fixed salary and recited by the press.