I couldn't give you any numbers, but it's true that "Columbo" quickly got a reputation among the Universal executives, as a "problem" show with a "difficult" star.

The studio wanted each episode to be shot in 10 days or less. Peter Falk regarded that as unreasonable, so he would engage the director and others in long discussions about the plot and the characters, and soon they were into overtime. The episodes instead took 12, 13 or 14 days to shoot, and "time is money".

And, Peter himself famously lobbied for his own fair share of the money that the show took in. He used a variety of strategies, legend has it, including a "sick-out" (although, to be fair, he did have a doctor's note saying he was sick). As far as I recall seeing in print, his salary climbed to $100,000 per episode. Of course, today there are a number of TV stars that make far more, but this was a whole lot of money in the early '70s.

The show's creators, Levinson & Link, wrote about this a number of times, including in their book "Stay Tuned". See the Articles section of this web site.