Judge Judy type TV Show genre Reality

All rise for the world’s highest-paid TV host.

According to a new Forbes ranking, Judy Sheindlin, known to audiences as Judge Judy, takes the No. 1 spot on the list of highest-paid talk show hosts with $147 million in pretax income last year. Shiendlin majorly ramped up her earnings by selling the rights to the Judge Judy library (consisting of 5,200 episodes) to CBS for $100 million. That sale more than tripled her annual earnings, according to Forbes. She normally rakes in $47 million from her duties as Judge Judy host and a producer of Hot Bench.

The top five on the Forbes list are all daytime hosts, reflecting the consistent money and large viewing audiences for such long-running broadcast series.

Sheindlin, who has been on the air doling out tough love and judicial rulings for more than two decades, is joined on the list by a bevy of familiar faces. Ellen DeGeneres is No. 2 with her combination of a lucrative daily series and a host of producing credits and licensing deals, while Dr. Phil, Ryan Seacrest, and Steve Harvey complete the top five.

Forbes determined its list by using earnings estimates from June 1, 2017, through June 1, 2018. All sums are pretax and don’t include deductions for agents, managers, etc. Read the full Forbes story for more.

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