You have two posters saying it. Does that make it truer?

One is saying they are all fake, the other is saying they are sometimes fake, sometimes real.

They record 5 shows a day so around $11K a day is about right for a studio show.

Please go post this in the SE CHALLENGE thread

Or right around $1m per day for Judge Judy. Nice work if you can get it. $47m for around 45 days of work per year is just incredible.

I doubt they employ post-production mixers, but at a rate of say $500 an episode that would be a really good yearly salary. I don't think it would be hard to mix 12-15 (so a 16-20 week post mixing schedule) of those in a 40 hour week (as long as it's a 30 minute format) once you had a flow going.

daveT, what are you basing your numbers on? I found that it appears they do about 222 episodes per year (average of $45ishk per episode). IF PP's numbers are accurate (and I'd assume they are), that means they spend about $34k per episode for post/delivery/marketing.

I think some figures got mixed up here, but if the math involves a 10m budget (excluding JJ) and 244 episodes, that works out to be 41k per episode -- almost what nunnehi pointed out, except for the 10m vs 57m aspect. 57m / 244 = 233k per episode.

My numbers came from another post so they are not checked for accuracy. It just seemed that the below the line production cost seemed reasonable. Above the line are talent, producer, director, marketing and other costs which are additional.

I'm sure they try to get it as close to right in the can as possible, and try to only use post for fixes. It would actually be interesting to see what the process from start to finish is on a show like that, and whether they online inside Avid or an equivalent. Post houses used to dream to get strip shows, but they had no idea that strip shows rarely get mixed or go through a traditional post process. There's just not enough time or budget for most of them.

When I did the final mix (really just audience sweetening and fixes) for the 90s MTV show Loveline in the first season, I used to have to sweeten, mix, and layback 6 shows in one day (it was an hour long show, and we posted on Mondays). It was grueling. Toward the mid point of that run (I did something like 70 episodes), I was allowed to have someone do the laydowns for me for sweetening, but it was still never not a 14 hour day for me (an easy 14 hour day, but always 14 hours). Post houses just thought you would get a show a day and mix all day. Nope, it was always jam out a show every 2 hours or so, and they're all on one day (max of 2 days on an hour long show that has a lot of throughput) so they can get ahead. With tapeless and OMF these days, that post process would have been a piece of cake (probably would have just been able to remove the laydown process), but back then it wasn't.

Sounds like we are of the era. I was an linear on-line video editor from '84-'02.
2+2 blog

You're a bit older than me (no offense...lol). I entered the business in 1994. I was right at the tail of end of analog audio tape still being used, but only had to deal with it on a handful of mixing projects, mostly that were using very old elements (though I frequently had to deal with audio tape for laybacks fairly early in my career). I started out on a Fairlight, and was moved on to Pro Tools in 2008. I still love Fairlight, but there's absolutely no reason for me to buy one for my business, since Pro Tools works just fine for every purpose so far.

I've seen your blog, and think you have a very interesting and successful career.

Well the one who is claiming they are all fake obviously has no idea what he's taking about...since one of my patients here in New England was on the show during the time I was seeing him. Since he hardly even needed to speak during the case, I really doubt that they somehow found this non-actor, flew him out to CA. and paid him to portray a boring litigant who basically stood in silence.

Consequently, since the person who said they are all fake is obviously full of ****, that leaves the word of one other poster who thinks maybe some of the characters are acting.

The conspiracy theory sounds legit to me.

"Actor" shouldn't be in quotes unless they were really a Pawn Star pretending to be an actor pretending to be a Pawn Star.

I don't think they care what you call them as they rake in several milli a year.

Who do you think is claiming everyone on Judge Judy is fake? Not me.


My best guess is that they get as many interesting real cases as they can, then have actors sub in for cancellations or if they just don't have any fun cases. The more wild the case, the more likely it is to be fake imo.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was often one of the paid audience members for all of the "Judge" shows shot at Bronson Studios and I did background extra work. I don't know how many cases I've seen, but I'm sure it is around 100.

Yes, some of the cases were fake, and some obviously so. Since I've seen the production live and all of the other stuff, I have a decent idea of what was happening.

When times were desperate, they would contact Central Casting (or similar agency) and ask for a few "actors" to come in and pretend they were in the case. I knew a few of these people at the time. One was a regular audience member up until he was the plaintiff or defendant on the show (sorry, I don't know which he was).

The real plaintiffs and defendants were brought to the studio in a taxi.

I don't know what more to say on this. You can either chose to believe me or not.

chum lee

hard knocks baby!
and road to the winter classic.

tho i guess those aren't really reality shows.