'Netflix made all the money': who gets paid for our favourite TV shows?

This year, Tiger King, the seven-part docu-series following a number of eccentric big-cat owners, breeders and conservationists in the US, was named Netflix’s most-watched title. So it’s hardly surprising that one of the show’s favourites, John Reinke, the former GW zoo manager known for his straight-talking and his tattooed prosthetic legs, has said he is “irritated” that he hasn’t made a penny from it.

“I filmed that thing for five or six years, and didn’t make biscuits out of that,” Reinke said in an interview with the pop culture website TooFab. “Netflix made all the money on that.”

If Reinke or any of the other cast members had been paid it would undoubtedly have undermined the film-maker’s credibility. That was the problem encountered by the makers of Hulu’s Fyre festival doc, Fyre Fraud, which was initially praised as more trustworthy than a competing documentary on Netflix (produced by Jerry Media, the firm responsible for advertising the festival). This trust evaporated when it was revealed that the show’s central villain, Billy McFarland, was paid for his involvement.

Tiger King serves as an example of the increasingly blurred lines between documentary, factual entertainment and reality TV, and so lends itself to the ongoing question of why reality TV stars so often go unpaid. Payment by way of exposure has been decried as problematic in every other industry, from journalism to fashion, but reality TV appears to be the one realm where it is considered valid to offer compensation via the tentative promise of C-list celebrity status. It is an increasingly precarious agreement, given that the good old days of selling exclusive, staged images to the tabloids are long gone. While Jade Goody made good money from slinging her own “candid” snaps to the press, that hustle doesn’t cut it in the Instagram era, where pictures are simply ripped by papers straight from the feed.

The rules vary programme to programme. In many cases, reality stars are not considered employees of their shows’ production companies, so just receive expenses. Those that appear in competition-type series such as Survivor or The Bachelor often receive no form of remuneration at all. In fact, contestants auditioning for The Bachelor must sign a contract beforehand stating that “they will not make claims against the producer for compensation, derived from any allegation of status as an employee”. They must agree to appear as “participants” in a contest, as opposed to “performers”; the former not being recognised legally as a form of employee. This is similar in programmes such as Married at First Sight and Love Is Blind, where the official gain is said not to be monetary, but in finding true love (and, unofficially, a new social media audience).

The potential financial gains are huge, but by no means guaranteed. Many contestants quit their jobs to go on The Apprentice or rack up huge bills attempting to get on The Bachelor. It’s a risky strategy with no financial safety net; a regular complaint of contestants who are eventually cast but don’t make the big time is that they struggle to find work afterwards. They are suspended in a strange limbo, with a level of fame that is enough to alienate potential employers but not sufficient to garner a steady income as a celebrity.

Much like the influencer culture with which reality TV is so associated, the customs that govern how and whether the stars are paid is vague – is it about visibility, fame, payment in kind? And it’s undoubtedly a class issue, too. These shows are usually dominated by working-class people who, if they are lucky, go on to become household names. Those who are already well-off are usually better protected. Though it is not confirmed, it is estimated that stars of The Real Housewives and Vanderpump Rules franchises earn up to $2.75m (£2.2m) a season. The Kardashians, meanwhile, reportedly make about $900,000 an episode. Aspiration and elitism are integral to such shows, so even if they don’t come out of it as a fan favourite, they will be fine and are unlikely to be trapped by contracts with as little protection as, say, bachelorettes, the contestants eliminated from The Bachelor.

One good run on a show can be life-changing; just look at the various Love Island millionaires or the drag queens on Drag Race that have gone on to build fempires. Social media and celebrity endorsement means the majority of success stories make their money away from the show; at one point, a strip in Brentwood, Essex, was dominated by shops owned by the cast of The Only Way Is Essex. Despite members of the show frequently topping reality-TV rich lists, however, not all the participants get their due. The original Towie cast was allegedly paid a measly £50 an episode and, just last year, half the cast boycotted ITV’s summer party protesting about their £100-a-day pay. A number of the cast’s shops, which once attracted their own tourism boom, have now closed.

This issue is exacerbated on the show 90 Day Fiancé, in which US citizens and their foreign fiances are followed for the 90 days their K1 visa allows them to decide whether to get married. The show’s US citizens receive about $1,500 an episode, but since the visa does not give applicants enough time to obtain a work permit, their non-citizen counterparts do not. Given the fact that it is usually the non-American partner’s character arc that garners the views, goes viral and pushes the thrust of the storylines, that doesn’t feel fair. It feels exploitative, especially in a situation where many of them live in fear of deportation. The series isn’t necessarily aired in their home countries, meaning they are unable to capitalise on their newfound, financially lucrative fame in the same way as their US peers.

Though not a reality-TV show cast member, Reinke’s disappointment at not monetising his appearance on Tiger King is understandable. “I’ve not tried to make money at all through this … until now,” he said. The ethical issues with paying documentary contributors are certainly valid. But one does wonder, given all that the standout characters on reality TV do to make the shows what they are, how many grand performances they will have to put on before producers make their appearances worth their while.