ER (1998-1999)

$13 million/episode

This little hospital show starring George Clooney was obviously a gigantic hit for NBC. When Clooney’s movie career took off the show faced losing their bread and butter. NBC agreed to a gigantic 2-year budget to pay the salary while keeping up with explosive nature of the big episodes.

This was seen as a big mistake, and the show lost 15% of its ratings for those 2 seasons, and Clooney ended up leaving in 1999 anyways. I guess this is a prime example that money doesn’t solve everything.