Slide Show | By Taylor Haggerty, The List | There are plenty of reasons for viewers to tune into late night shows. Whether you’re a fan of the comedic experts hosting the entire thing, trying to catch an interview with your favorite actress, or watching for potential bloopers and mistakes, the programs are designed to keep you entertained and tuned in for every moment. But there’s one essential part of that process you might not even notice: the band in the background.
House bands are vital to keeping an audience interested and engaged. After all, you don’t want your viewers falling asleep before the show is over. And it’s important for the in-person audience, too; as Jimmy Kimmel told Variety, bands can keep them entertained during commercial breaks with sing-alongs and karaoke. “It’s a vital part of the format and adds so much energy, especially for the audience during the commercials,” Kimmel said.
But with all that work going into keeping the audience entertained, it’s definitely worth asking: How much is a house band paid, and how hard is it to land the job?
Late night show bands can make around $1 million annually
The life of a talk show musician has its perks. As Variety reports, it allows artists to play around with pretty much every musical genre, and they don’t have to deal with the grueling travel and touring schedules of typical bands. The gig comes with a hefty cost, too, as networks have been known to spend as much as $1 million on certain house bands annually, according to the Los Angeles Times.
But that money doesn’t necessarily amount to much for each individual musician. According to an infographic from the American Federation of Musicians, a union representing the performers, most talk show musicians received a little less than $325 per episode appearance in 2020. If a musician is on the same show every night of the week, that can make for a quick $2,000.
Even if those pay rates seem high to the average salaried American, though, they pale in comparison to some of the other people working on the shows. Jimmy Fallon, who hosts The Tonight Show, makes about $16 million a year from that show alone.
The American Federation of Musicians negotiated for a raise in 2020
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