Supernatural Revenue in International Markets

As impressive as Supernatural’s numbers are getting in the US though, the big money continues to come from international markets. This is why the show has survived this long. This is why the show will continue to survive until the cast, crew, and producers decide they don’t want to do it anymore (don’t let CW ratings fool you). Supernatural thrives worldwide.

When Supernatural is sold to foreign markets, the financial picture gets murky. Often Warner Brothers will sell on the open market many their shows in packages and the revenue gets distributed among the shows based on that total package value. That makes figuring out what Supernatural’s share is difficult. Considering the show is often included in those packages though, and is currently running in 53 countries, it’s plenty. Let’s say even with a package Supernatural runs at a discount of $500,000 per episode. Since these international packages are by season, that’s roughly $11 million per season per package. That figure is rooted in what I call middle ground. I’m sure plenty of other deals go higher, but a few could go lower.

Another murky picture is who the licensing is actually sold to. The Warner Channel, who runs Supernatural in first run, airs in 38 countries. Eleven are on our list. Chances are that is one deal, not eleven. However, it could be written into the deal that the more countries are covered, the higher the price. Ditto for AXN. Pro Sieben is free TV in Germany, but airs in other countries like Austria, which hasn’t been airing Supernatural (but will be resuming soon).

However, in the case of countries like Canada and Brazil, Supernatural airs on both cable and free TV. That’s a different deal for each station, so there’s multiple revenue streams from the same country. It helps too that Supernatural is very popular in a country like Brazil (where ratings on free TV alone are triple those Supernatural gets on The CW) so they are likely to pay a premium.

Supernatural has been shown in up to 75 countries through it’s history … so who knows how much past revenue has earned on the international market. In the early seasons Supernatural’s going rate was $100,000 an episode and has gradually increased with each season. The revenue was enough to cover the show’s budget in the early years.

That’s all first run though, which is controlled by Warner Brothers International Distribution. They are also selling past seasons in second run syndication now too… . Going rate for six seasons is around $88 million… . Some syndication deals involve bartering in which Warner Brothers gets a percent of the profits from the advertising that the local station sells. Either way, it’s serious money.

Supernatural is available to some VOD outlets internationally as well… . I can’t even speculate if these episodes were sold on a per episode basis or through a traditional syndication pricing model, but if Netflix is any indication, it’s the latter. It goes to show that online is an option in other countries as well.

I know what many of you are thinking, if Supernatural is making this much money, why isn’t it getting more money for budget? Well, it’s the law of corporate business in general. You’ve got to feed the machine. A studio has to function. There is a cost of facilities, marketing, HR personnel, corporate personnel like accountants, IT etc. Also, the cost of developing new shows is very high and most don’t come close to Supernatural’s success. Yes, in a way Supernatural helps pay for Warner Brothers’ failures.

Then a share of the profits have to go to the other production companies, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Kripke Enterprises, residuals have to be paid to all the actors every time an episode they are in airs worldwide, and residuals are paid to the writers and directors of the episodes. Yes, there is still profit in the end, but it’s amazing how creative TV studios (and film) can get to show that they don’t make any money. But hey, that’s a whole other article.

The bottom line is, if a show brings in the big revenue, it goes on. But then again, I’m not saying anything new. Hopefully this article served its purpose in painting the picture of how much money can be made by a veteran show in television today. It’s quite staggering, and I haven’t even gotten into CSI dollars. So, for Supernatural, it’s all good.