Ellen tops in TV with $50M salary

For being in a business harsh on both women and members of the LGBT community, Ellen DeGeneres (left) does exceedingly well. TheThe TVTV hoshost’s $50 milliona-year salary makes her the highest-paid person on TV, according to a report on Tuesday. Judy SheinSheindlin, star of “Judge Judy,” came in No. 2, with a salary of $47 million, followed by “Today’s” Matt Lauer ($25 million), “American Idol’s” Katy Perry ($25 mil- lion) and Kelly Ripa ($22 million) of “Live With Kelly and Ryan.”

Prime-time stars didn’t show on Variety’ s “Who is Making What in Hollywood” list until the No. 6 slot — where each of the five cast members of “The Big Bang Theory” earned $19.8 million.

The comedic actors would have earned more but agreed to cuts in exchange for raising the pay of co-stars Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch to $11 million.

Variety notes that TV salaries have risen sharply in recent years, which it attributes to the emergence of deeppocketed new buyers such as Netflix and Amazon.

Indeed, for an Amazon project not yet named, Robert De Niro is set to earn $17.05 million for its first season.

Perennial TV fan favorite Mark Harmon takes home $11.55 million for each season of “NCIS,” the report said.

That is just 5 percent more than the $11 million Kevin Spacey is paid annually for “House of Cards” and the size of the paycheck for the five stars of five “Game of Thrones.”

“Stars with brand names are more in demand than ever as dozens of competing outlets search for anything that will help a show stand out from the pack,” Variety explains.

That’s why Perry, the hardto-get “AI” judge, was able to hold up ABC for such a salary — and why Netflix agreed to pay Dave Letterman $12 million to host a six-episode interview show.

While there’s plenty of money in the air — and on the air — it doesn’t fall evenly.

A companion piece to Variety’s salary survey notes that women and minorities still make less than white men.

“CBS allowed Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, both of Korean heritage, to walk away from ‘Hawaii Five-0’ rather than match their pay to that of white male stars Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan,” the trade reports.

And while women make up 51 percent of the US population, they accounted for only 44 percent of last season’s regular prime-time broadcast roles.

Blacks were cast in 20 percent of the roles — and only 38 percent were black women.