Sure he had a great education and a great job in Boston, but how did Frasier afford his lifestyle by just being a local talk show host? I could never understand that.
sharePrior to being a talk show host, he had a successful psychiatric practice for several years. Also, Seattle is not as expensive as San Francisco, Manhattan, or Los Angeles.
shareA successful talk show host on a 50,000 watt station in that market that reaches Canada would make $150,000-$200,000 a year. Metro Seattle is almost 4 million people.
There would be many opportunities for a guy like Frasier to do voice overs and ads though we see little of that on the show.
Perhaps Frasier's life style is a bit over the top but he lives in a 2000 sq ft apartment not a mansion and drives a BMW not a Bentley.
Really? Even back in the 90's? That's great change.
shareI remember an afternoon talk show host in Chicago(WLS 890) who bragged about making 200k a year in teh early 90s. He was a jerk to callers and eventually got fired for bad ratings.
I'm assuming Frasier's show was a very successful one and not the typical 2-5 show.
If he'd invested well during his years as a well-paid psychiatrist, and he'd sold a house in Boston before buying his 3BR condo, he'd have arrived with a good chunk of change. Then he'd have earned six figures as a talk show host and could earn more with speaking engagements, and from things that were said on the show his mother might have come from money. There may have been an inheritance or trust fund there, although that's just speculation on my part.
Seattle real estate wasn't through the roof back then, but I think good real estate in Boston could be pretty expensive, so he may have made a profit on moving from one place to the other. Of course the divorce might have cost him a lot of his capital, but Lillith earned good money herself and even if she was sick to death of him, I'd guess she was too ethical to really shaft him financially when she had the chance, so he may have walked away with more assets than a lot of divorced men. But presumably he was paying her child support, which is why Frasier was living in a place that was kind of humble next to Niles and Maris's mansion.
So I think Frasier being able to afford that lovely condo was possible, but far from guaranteed. A man with his career would have had to been financially very smart or very lucky to make it possible, but well. Frasier wasn't stupid.
No he wasn't stupid, but again, he did have a very lavish lifestyle for someone who was a well-paid psychiatrist in Boston and a job at a local radio station in Seattle. I don't know, even with investments and everything else, he always seemed to be living beyond his means. He always acted like some trust fund kid. He was the male Diane with a better job. Who knows? I just was wondering what others felt.
shareMost TV characters live beyond their means, living in places the characters couldn't possibly afford on their salaries. There have been a few exceptions over the decades, like "All in the Family" and "Roseanne", but most TV and movie characters live in places couldn't possibly afford. My favorite is "Mrs. Doubtfire", where Robin Williams is thrown out by his wife and has no job, and moves into a lovely Victorian apartment in San Francisco that probably cost $2-3K a month in nineties dollars.
So yeah, I don't think Frasier could live in quite that style on his radio earnings, but a man with his known background wouldn't necessarily be living on his radio earnings. It's also possible that spending all his spare time with Niles, who had married money, accustomed him to living in a finer style than was wise.