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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daniel Avery" data-source="post: 252559" data-attributes="member: 27">Brad Bell and his production company produces the show, then "licenses" it to whomever is the highest bidder.  CBS obviously licenses it to air in the US, and they likely pay a licensing fee to Bell which is large enough to finance the entire operation, or at least a large portion of it.  Bell then licenses the reruns to overseas broadcasters to make even more money.  Once Bell licenses the reruns to a network, the producers typically don't get any other financial benefits; that network keeps all the revenue from commercials aired during the reruns.  The amount of the licensing fee is going to be geared toward how much commercial ad revenue that network expects to pull in--in other words, if it's expected to be a big hit, they will negotiate a larger licensing fee, and if it's just something to fill the slot, it might not have a large fee.  But after Bell gets the lump sum/fee, he doesn't benefit financially from what that network does with the show.  After the show becomes a hit, they can obviously renegotiate that fee upward, but they will never get a "piece of the action" in ad sales or anything like that.Keep in mind that if the network owns or co-owns the production company, then all this changes.</blockquote>