# Which TV Format, Highest Profit To Cost Ratio?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [November 27, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608 "2022-11-27T00:26:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/1 "2022-11-27T00:26:50Z")
Maybe there is a definitive answer to this question, probably not. A lot of TV formats - reality shows, game shows, adventures hunting for ghosts or Bigfeet, shows about cooking and home renovation… essentially cost comparatively little to make. Sure, most of these shows are not _Friends_, but neither do they star six people getting a million dollars each episode. Growing up in Canada, the popular game show _Definition_ featured lucrative prizes like $50 cash, or “Dinner For Two”. One guesses most of the costs for The Amazing Bachelor in the Boonies go for travel costs and more permanent hosts and judges, with much recouped from hotels and others happy for the publicity. Radio serials were probably not very expensive to make either.
**But what TV format actual has the highest profit to cost ratio? Has this changed over time, with social media, or as advertising revenue became even more significant than production costs?**
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/2 "2022-11-27T01:22:47Z")
I’m going with game shows. Advertising and product placement covers most of the costs except popular hosts.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/3 "2022-11-27T01:27:06Z")
Knowing just enough about TV media to be dangerous: I’ll go with reality shows and game shows (especially those that don’t feature celebrities), due to relatively low costs for on-screen talent and scriptwriting.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/4 "2022-11-27T02:26:17Z")
In terms of production costs, the winner has to be courtroom reality shows. Talk shows cost a little more to produce, but they have more opportunities for product placement. Game shows have even more product placement, but bigger payouts.
If you go by revenue, the winner is probably celebrity-based reality shows, since they’re the ones that show up on the prime time schedule.
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### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/5 "2022-11-27T06:48:47Z")
Ratios aren’t really important in a medium with a fixed quantity of airtime to sell. Eg: If a TV station had the choice between putting something in a slot that cost $1 to produce and make $1M worth of revenue or cost $10M to produce and make $12M worth of revenue, they should logically pick the second.
If you’re asking purely for informational purposes, then you need to pretty carefully define what cost to produce and profit mean because things get really hinky around the edge cases.
eg: Ross Perot would just buy half hour slots on television to promote his presidential campaign. Does this mean it’s a negative cost to produce segment for the tv station?
Or what about informercial blocks? There’s technically zero minutes of content and 100% ads so is this an infinite ratio? What about charity fundraising events where everyone donates their time/equipment? Does this make it a zero dollar to produce block of programming?
There was famously a James Bond movie where they bragged about how anyone seeing the movie in the theaters was pure profit because they had made back all of their production costs via product placement, how does that count in your formula?
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/6 "2022-11-27T18:32:32Z")
The cheapness alone does not matter to the station but it does to the person producing content, and that is whom I hoped to emphasize.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/7 "2022-11-27T22:38:45Z")
To be clear, are you asking which TV format gives the most bang for the buck to the advertiser? Because, except for infomercials and a few special cases, the advertiser does not produce the program. In fact, often the advertiser doesn’t even choose a particular program - they buy a group of audience numbers and demographics, and the network/station/cable company builds a schedule of different programs that will deliver those numbers.
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/8 "2022-11-27T23:34:09Z")
Let me put it this way. If you were making TV content on a budget, what format would be the best choice?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/9 "2022-11-28T00:05:26Z")
If there were one certain answer, wouldn’t it be known and everybody already be overmaking those?
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/10 "2022-11-28T00:18:38Z")
Given that my initial answer was (in part) “reality TV shows,” I might postulate that they already _are_ overmaking those, and have been for several decades.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/11 "2022-11-28T03:33:19Z")
There’s no format guaranteed to make money for the program creator. Pay attention to daytime TV schedules and you’ll find a staggering number of talk shows, quiz shows, real crime shows, etc. that barely last a single season. For every Oprah and Ellen, there are probably 10 Megan Mullallys and Tony Danzas who premiered to great fanfare and were replaced by someone else who premiered to great fanfare and were replaced by someone else.
I suppose if I were an independent producer hoping to get a paycheck, I’d do infomercials. The sponsor pays all the bills, and all I’d have to worry about is sticking to the budget. I’d never get as rich as if I had created _Friends_ - or even _The People’s Court_ - but hey, a job’s a job.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/12 "2022-11-28T20:31:38Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> If there were one certain answer, wouldn’t it be known and everybody already be overmaking those?
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> Given that my initial answer was (in part) “reality TV shows,” I might postulate that they already _are_ overmaking those, and have been for several decades.
@kenobi_65 is correct. It was during a writers strike of 2007-2008 that led to the proliferation of reality TV and it stuck because it became popular and was cheap to produce.
> **[10 Years Later, Here's How The Writers Strike Indelibly Changed TV](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/10-years-ago-screenwriters-went-on-strike-and-changed-television-forever_n_5a7b3544e4b08dfc92ff2b32)**
>
> From the rise of reality TV to the "death" of the baby writer, the 100-day battle between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had long-lasting effects.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/13 "2022-11-28T22:13:30Z")
The OP already guessed reality shows were the category but seemed to want some breakdown for which was best within the category. That’s the hard question.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/14 "2022-11-28T22:31:46Z")
On average, reality shows may be most profitable, but at the extreme end, _really_ popular sitcoms like Seinfeld, Friends or The Office get money from the original network broadcast, network reruns, syndicated reruns and streaming.
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### Author:  [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/15 "2022-11-28T22:55:31Z")
Wasn’t Mystery Science Theater 3000 and it’s ilk (which now includes those TV shows that just riff on YouTube footage) the cheapest? You’re commenting on footage that’s already made for you and is free or almost free and you have very minimal to spend on sets and actors.
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### Author:  [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/16 "2022-11-29T06:07:26Z")
> [@Asuka](#):
>
> Wasn’t Mystery Science Theater 3000 and it’s ilk (which now includes those TV shows that just riff on YouTube footage) the cheapest?
That’s the sort of thing I had in mind—clip shows in general, from ‘funniest home videos’ to ‘the 100 \’, although I don’t know if the latter may be a uniquely German affliction. There’s virtually no cost to those save perhaps some comparatively trivial licensing, perhaps someone doing some narration, and editing. Then again, I don’t see those raking in exactly Seinfeld-style money…
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/17 "2022-11-29T06:12:52Z")
Yule Log videos.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/18 "2022-11-29T20:55:41Z")
Feels like COPS deserves a mention.
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### Author:  [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2022, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/19 "2022-11-30T10:16:28Z")
Tosh.0 was at one point MTVs highest rated show which has to stand for something.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2022, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-format-highest-profit-to-cost-ratio/975608/20 "2022-11-30T17:16:27Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> Then again, I don’t see those raking in exactly Seinfeld-style money…
_America’s Funniest Videos_ has been on network TV for 33 years (briefly #1 in the ratings,) has been running in syndication since 1995, and has licensed spinoffs all over the world. Maybe not Seinfeld, but not shabby.
Then again, for every AFV, there are probably 100 unsold knockoffs where the production company didn’t even make back the cost of the demo reel.
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