No Starving Artists Here

They're only the Dirty Dozen in the sense that these twelve performers are filthy rich. TV Guide compiled a list of the highest paid people in television, and with salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode, some small-screen stars are pulling in big-screen-sized salaries. Oprah Winfrey reigns supreme as the queen of daytime television. Her HARPO Productions company had $385 million in total revenues in 2007. Sharp-tongued Brit Simon Cowell of American Idol earns $50 million a year raking contestants across the coals. By comparison, David Letterman makes $32 million a year as the host of the Late Show and Katie Couric makes $15 million annually as the anchor of CBS News. Charlie Sheen is the highest paid sit-com actor. With an ownership interest in the show Two and a Half Men, he makes $825,000 per episode. CSI star William Peterson nets $600,000 per episode. And Mariska Hargitay books $400,000 per episode for nabbing bad guys in Law & Order: SVU. The five actors who voice the citizens of Springfield for The Simpsons split $2 million an episode evenly between them. And you might not recognize him, but Seth MacFarlane, the voice of Peter Griffin on Family Guy, recently signed a contract with 20th Century Fox that will pay him $100 million through 2012 to be the writer and producer of the popular animated comedy show.