5. Chelsea Handler – $12.5 million
Chelsea Handler is also on the list of highest paid talk show hosts with her show on the E! Network, Chelsea Lately. She makes $12.5 million per year and has achieved ratings that few nighttime talk shows ever reach. The network never counted on Chelsea Handler becoming as popular as she did and as she made her show. Her salary is higher than the salaries of talk show hosts for the larger networks because she is single handedly responsible for bringing in the most viewers to the network.
6. Conan O’Brien – $12 million
Conan O’Brien started out as a script writer on The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. In the wake of what turned out to be Jay Leno’s temporary retirement from The Tonight Show Conan O’Brien took over hosting duties on the show. During this time Jay Leno hosted a talk show named after himself, but it did not last long before the network pulled the plug on it. When Leno decided to come back out of retirement from The Tonight Show O’Brien lost his job hosting the show, which he had given up hosting his own late night show for. He was then offered a talk show on the TBS network, which he took. He is now the most popular talk show host on the entire network.
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