I’ve always wondered that. Do people on these shows like “little people, big world” and “John and Kate Plus 8” get paid? I know that “reality show” producers like the ones of “The Osbornes” paid them, but they were already famous, what about the non-famous ones who are about to be famous?
Why else would they allow cameras into their home and spend so much time getting miked every morning, doing all those interviews, etc?
fame? attention? bring in people to their farm? The reason I ask is because the Rolloffs are always talking about how broke they are, yet they just did a house addition, went on vacation and built up their ghost town on their farm. So I figured they were at least getting a few thousand.
Rumor has it that the Gosselins of John and Kate Plus 8 get up to something on the order of $60k per episode. I believe that it’s TLC’s biggest show.
Kate is also quite possibly the biggest bitch on the face of the planet, so I’m sure her negotiations regarding her vaginal clown car existance were pushy and domineering just like the rest of her life.
This reminds me of The Soup’s comment that next year, the show will be retitled:
Jon minus 9
It featured a picture of him windsurfing alone.
As far as I’m concerned, she’s an angel compared to that freak Michelle Duggar.
IIRC, the folks on “Little People, Big World” are listed as the producers of the show, as well as being the “stars” of it, so they certainly would be getting a cut.
Ooh! Ooh! This morning I thought of a simile to use some time:
**
As rare as a Michelle Duggar menstrual period. **
Okay, it’s gross, but it’s true!
Yes, Jon and Kate are getting paid. In fact, some high profile child stars have recently expressed concern for the children, as Jon has apparently quit his job. That means that their financial survival now depends on the children continuing to appear on the show.
And if the recent reports by “Aunt Jodi” (who appeared on the show for the first couple of seasons) are true, Kate is indeed the biggest bitch on Earth. I think it’s odd that with so many kids, the people helping them for free are not biologically related to the kids, and you never ever see Jon and Kate’s parents. When asked about it on the show, Kate gave some vague answer that their parents are never around to help cause “they don’t have a clue”. Huh? They don’t have a clue about how to help you for free with your 8 kids so you don’t see them at all ever? Wow. If you listen to “Aunt Jodi”, however, the other family members are never around because Jon and Kate had already alienated them with their grabbiness before the show even started running.
http://www.supernannyrules.com/jon-and-kate-plus-eight-aunt-jodi-on-a-blogging-warpath/
Surely money for vacations comes from the network and not the families themselves, right? I can just see the bigwigs wetting themselves thinking about what kind of mayhem would ensue if you cram a bunch of kids and a couple of parents into an RV for several weeks. Them’s good ratings there, I tell ya! They probaby couldn’t get on the phone to Winnebago fast enough.
Well, they get paid if they read their lines and hit their spots correctly. And after they have paid their SAG dues of course.
Not really “apparently” - I watched one episode where he discussed how he is no longer employed and is now doing “consulting”.
If as suggested above they each get SAG fees, that means that each person gets paid a minimum of $760 per day of filming. That’s $7,600 for the ten of them, and I’m quite positive that John and Kate are making more than SAG minimum, given their other roles in the show.
Many of the shows seem focused on particular days - there are very few, if any, JK8 episodes that span days on end. So while it seems that the cameras are “always there”, they’re probably there nowhere as much as in other reality shows like The Real World.
John, at times, looks like a whipped dog.
That was a joke. And SAG is a film guild anyway, not tv.
Amen. But both of them scare me shitless anyway.
SAG represents television actors.
I’m pretty sure SAG doesn’t cover reality shows.
SAG does cover a lot of TV production.
As shown in the link in the very section that Cisco quoted. 
Even though it’s entirely possible that JK8 is represented by SAG’s main competitor, AFTRA, who does cover reality show actors. Regardless, the people involved in the production of the show are almost guaranteed to be unionized by one or the other guild - including the kids.
I swear that John is going to eat a .45 live on camera one of these days, and purposefully get his brain bits and skull matter on her carpets.
I admit I am not an expert on the situation (unions in general confuse me) - though I have several friends in SAG and I recently made the last round of callbacks on a project that would have made me SAG eligible had I gotten the part* - it is my understanding that SAG’s sister union (not competitor), AFTRA, handles most or all of the tv end of the business. I could be somewhat mistaken and I am 100% sure there are exceptions, but generally SAG = film and AFTRA = television.
Edit: *Err, rather, required me to join IIRC.