They aren’t allowed to exploit their onscreen persona, and must seek permission to make voiceovers and personal appearances and even to do the odd panto.
£ The main difference between ITV soaps and the BBC’s EastEnders is that actors on the latter are permitted to do less extracurricular work than their Emmerdale and Coronation Street counterparts. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 guides.But, based on the actors appearing in every episode and including the omnibus repeat fee, these figures amounted to the maximum each could earn. When some EastEnders salaries were leaked in 2006, it was revealed that Natalie Cassidy (Sonia) was on £150,000, Cliff Parisi (Minty) was on £220,000, Barbara Windsor (Peggy) and Steve McFadden (Phil) were both on £360,000 and Wendy Richard (Pauline) £370,000. Actors playing popular characters - such as EastEnders’ Jessie Wallace, who plays Kat - get a higher fee and usually exceed their guaranteed minimum number of episodes, while actors playing less popular characters can be in danger of falling short (sometimes a warning of the axe). For example, a middle-ranking actor on EastEnders can get 65 episodes per year at £1,100 each. Salaries can therefore range from £12,000 to well over £200,000 depending on popularity. £ Across Emmerdale, Coronation Street and EastEnders, the pay structure is the same: actors get a fee per episode, which can range from £400 to £2,000, with a guaranteed number of episodes a year (as few as 30 or as many as 100) and a repeat fee. Of EastEnders’ £29.9m annual budget, £2.9m is spent on scripts, while £6.9m is spent on paying actors, extras and chaperones for child actors. Writers can be paid anything between £5,000 and £12,000 per episode, depending on experience. £ About one third of a soap’s budget goes on actors’ and writers’ wages. (There are 260 episodes of Coronation Street annually, though at 22 minutes, an episode of Corrie is seven minutes shorter than an episode of EastEnders.) ITV’s costs are more difficult to ascertain, but it would be fair to say that Coronation Street has a comparable budget, with Emmerdale’s closer to £125,000 per episode.