Friends Reunite for £23k a Minute

The six stars of hit US sitcom Friends are set to make an astonishing £17m each - £23,000 a minute - after they ended months of speculation and signed up for a final series of the show.

The deal means Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox Arquette, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer are now among Hollywood's best-paid stars with fees of a massive £700,000 each per half-hour episode.

The show's producer, Warner Bros, and American broadcaster NBC yesterday finalised deals which will see their salaries for each show increase by around a third from £527,000 under the previous two-year deal.

Production will begin on the 24 episodes of the ninth and final season of Friends in the autumn, with the final show due to be broadcast on NBC in the US next May.

The deal ends months of speculation over the fate of Friends, which has staged a critical and ratings comeback since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"We've never had better Friends and we're thrilled," said Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC.

"Since we all had the same objective, this was the easiest deal we have ever made," he added.

"Everyone wanted it to work out, because everyone wanted to be able to send the series out appropriately and in style."

The speed with which the deal was struck surprised observers, who had expected contract talks to stretch until May, when the current £527,000-an-episode deals expired.

There had been speculation that the cast was evenly split on whether or not to make a ninth season, with LeBlanc saying last month he "honestly didn't know" if there would be another series.

Aniston was said to be in favour of ending the show, while Schwimmer had spoken of his desire to quit acting and become a teacher.

Its hit status means NBC can charge advertisers £253,000 for a 30-second commercial during the show, making it second only to ER, whose advertising slots cost £288,000.

NBC is set to increase the licence fee it pays Warner Bros to air each show by around £700,000 to £4.6m.

This does not cover the full production costs of the show, when the cast's salaries are taken into account.

So the AOL Time Warner-owned production company will have to make its profits from US TV syndication of Friends, overseas sales to broadcasters - including Channel 4 in the UK - and revenue from videos and other merchandising.

However, the US TV syndication market for Friends alone is estimated to be worth £700m over 10 years.

The multimillion pound deal for the six stars is the latest pay-day for American sitcom stars.

Kelsey Grammer, the star of Frasier, is the best-paid American television star, at £1.17m for each half-hour episode, standing to make £53m over the next three years.

His co-star, British actress Jane Leeves, earns a reported £275,000 a show, while other stars including Jerry Seinfeld and Helen Hunt have also topped the £600,000 figure per episode in the past.