ER was an instant hit when it premiered on NBC in October 1994. But the project had not been an easy sell: it was created by an author, Michael Crichton, with no television record and conceived in a style drastically different from any other medical drama. Add to that a cast of then-largely unknowns and ER coming from an outside studio, indie Warner Bros. Television, and NBC got itself a bargain when it picked up the two-hour pilot to series.
That all changed four years later. With ER dominating the ratings and pop culture and its cast, led by George Clooney, all bonafide stars, NBC had to dig deep into its pockets to keep the medical drama on the air amid interest from rivals CBS and NBC. The dramatic negotiations and their stunning outcome — a new license fee of a whooping $13 million an episode — are being revisited by decorated entertainment journalist Lynette Rice (How To Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy) in her latest book, ER: The Oral History, which is being published on September 15 by St. Martin’s Press.
Here is a peek at the chapter about the behind-the-scenes battle, which includes interviews with Bob Daly, who oversaw negotiations on the studio side as Warner Bros. Chairman and Co-CEO; Leslie Moonves, who, as President and CEO of Warner Bros. Television, had developed and sold ER (and Friends) to NBC before becoming President of Entertainment of CBS in 1995; and ER executive producers Christopher Chulack and Jack Orman; with previous comments by former NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield.
The High Price Of Healthcare
ER generated many headlines in its early years, but none were quite as astonishing as those that circulated in 1998 when NBC renegotiated the license fee that it paid to air the medical drama. After almost four years of stalled talks, the network finally agreed to fork over an unprecedented $13 million an episode for the drama, or $286 million per year for twenty-two episodes. According to estimates at the time, NBC was making roughly $500 million in profits from the show; the astronomical renegotiation gobbled up more than half of it.
NBC could have gotten away with paying far less for the series; after season 1, Warner Bros. TV had tried to renegotiate the roughly $3 million per episode the network was paying so it could plan for the future and start giving raises to the popular ensemble. But NBC wasn’t ready to haggle over their standard four-year deal. Even though it was raking in big advertising dollars for its Thursday-night lineup that included the pricey Seinfeld, NBC had already renegotiated a new license fee for the Warner Bros.–produced Friends after its first season because comedies typically hold up better than dramas. ER, no matter how impressive its ratings were, would have to wait.
For a fleeting moment, NBC’s lackadaisical attitude left open the possibility that the network was about to lose one of its biggest assets. And Leslie Moonves, who had left Warner Bros. TV soon after developing ER to head up programming at CBS, was eager to pounce.
Bob Daly: They didn’t really realize what they had. At least, I don’t think [President of NBC West Coast] Don Ohlmeyer did. Unlike when they reimbursed us for Friends, they didn’t want to really reimburse us for what we had to give the talent for ER. So, I said, “Okay, we’re going to take a chance on this one. We won’t ask for more money. The hell with them. We will eat it, and they’ll pay through the nose if it goes more than five years. They’re going to really pay for it this time.” So, I gambled on it.
Warren Littlefield: We’d already made a billion dollars before the renegotiation began.
Leslie Moonves: The studios would always come back and renegotiate with the networks, and the networks would give them more money. It happens all the time. When I heard that Don Ohlmeyer didn’t want to step up at that point, I went to Bob Daly and made him a ridiculous offer to bring the show to CBS. I believe it was $12 million [an episode]. I’m not 100 percent sure, but it was up there. We figured out how much money ER was earning, and with the ratings it was getting, I think the number I offered was break even for the network. And I said, “Okay, if we get ER here to CBS, what’s that going to do for the rest of the schedule?” Also, ER had a special place in my heart. ER was one of my babies back in the day.
Bob Daly: When you have a hit show, the actors’ agents always come in for more money after year two, or it depends on how big a hit it is right away. I never had a problem giving people more money. But if I gave more money, I asked for more time. So, let’s say it was year two or three of the show. We would increase their salary for years four and five, which we had a contract on, and they would give us years six and seven. Obviously, it was to the advantage of the studio and the network to agree to do it because it’s good to get the sixth and seventh year or whatever it might be, so you don’t get held up.
Before negotiations officially opened at the start of 1998, ABC under Michael Eisner and Bob Iger had also been kicking the ER tires. If the overtures from the competition weren’t enough to pressure Ohlmeyer into finally making the deal, it was the call he received from Jerry Seinfeld that did. Over the holidays in 1997, the comedian reached Ohlmeyer in Aspen to say he wanted to end Seinfeld the following spring. At the time, Ohlmeyer told the Hollywood trades that Seinfeld’s call wasn’t necessarily im- petus for the deal, but it “shifted the dynamics somewhat. You’re never going to want to lose ER, but I think not having Seinfeld turned the Bunsen burner up even more.”
Bob Daly: They were feeling a lot of pressure. They couldn’t afford to lose ER. So, we made the deal, but I put two other conditions on it that’s never been put on the television show. I said, one, we have Thursday night at 10:00 and you can’t move the show. It’s going to stay there. Two, was that after we closed this deal, NBC had no rights on the talent. They had no more creative control over the show as far as talent was concerned. George was going to leave after five years, and that’s it. As for the rest of the talent, if somebody left for any reason, NBC couldn’t renegotiate the deal. The talent stayed and there was never a problem, but I wanted insurance that it never was going to be a problem.
Leslie Moonves: You want to know the truth? I rarely watched ER after I left Warner Bros. TV. It was too painful. Isn’t that silly, though? I rarely watched Friends after I left, too.
Bob Daly: To be honest, we originally wanted more than $13 million. My guys felt, and they probably were right, that we could have pushed them for another million or so. But we had a very good relationship with NBC. We had a lot of shows on NBC. So, there was a point where I didn’t want to offend them more than I was doing. I basically said to our people, “We don’t want to be pigs here.” I did that because I wanted them to call me up to thank me, as opposed to calling me up to scream at me. Ohlmeyer was really stretched out at that point. That was a huge increase in li- censing. I was a former network guy. I knew the pressure that they were receiving. Once you get a deal that you don’t even expect to get, why push them more than that? It just didn’t make sense.
Warren Littlefield: We didn’t own ER. We just rented it. After the first four years, we rented it for a lot more.
The cast and crew got to enjoy the sudden largesse, too. The five main cast members — George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Noah Wyle, Eriq La Salle, and Anthony Edwards — were each gifted $1 million checks while others like Laura Innes, Gloria Reuben, and Alex Kingston got $500,000. Meanwhile, executive producers John Wells, Michael Crichton, and Steven Spielberg pooled $6 million and distributed it to the crew.
Christopher Chulack: Spielberg and Crichton and John had profit participation, and they gave everybody a little stipend. It was very nice. They didn’t have to. It wasn’t a million dollars, but it was substantial.
Jack Orman: It was one of the most amazing things that I’ve ever seen in Hollywood, because most people would not have done that. I remember seeing an editor crying right outside one of the buildings, and I walked up to him and said, “What’s going on?” He was like, “I can buy a house now.”
Bob Daly: Everybody was shocked. It was a huge deal. The only deal that was better than the amount of money we got for ER was when [Warner Bros.] released Jon Peters and Peter Guber to go to Sony. [In 1989, the two studios settled a bitter contract dispute after the WB sued Sony for poaching the Batman producers.] We got like $750 million.
With additional sourcing from Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV, Warren Littlefield, 2012. Adapted from ER: The Oral History, by Lynette Rice. Copyright 2026 by Lynette Rice. Reprinted with the permission of St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of the St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
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