Brian Williams spent a decade of his career as an anchor on NBC Nightly News. In 1993, he joined the national Weekend Nightly News and was the chief White House correspondent. A few years later, he was the managing editor and anchor of The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC and CNBC. He then replaced Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News in 2004. Right after joining the program, NBC News was awarded a Peabody Award, the George Polk Award, and the DuPont- Columbia University award for the Hurricane Katrina coverage.
In 2015, he was suspended for six months and demoted from the Nightly News because he apparently “misrepresented” events when he was covering the Iraq War in 2003. Williams moved to MSNBC and is now the chief anchor as well as the host of their nightly program The 11th Hour with Brian Williams.
Jimmy Fallon – $16m
Jimmy Fallon is known for being part of Saturday Night Live and as the host of his own late-night talk show The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and prior to that, the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Fallon joined NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1998 where he was a co-host of the show’s Weekend Update segment. He became a household name in his six years in SNL. He left to focus on a career in film, in which he appeared in a number of movies such as Taxi, Fever Pitch, Factory Girl, Whip It, and Get Hard. But he soon returned to television to host Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC and later, became the sixth permanent host of The Tonight Show in 2014.
Robin Meade – $750k
Robin Meade is quite the savant with all the things she has dabbled with. She majored in radio/television production, programming and performance at Malone University and Ashland University. Her broadcasting career started after she became Miss Ohio and was a semi-finalist in the Miss America pageant. She worked through several broadcasting stations before joining HLN, formerly known as CNN Headline News. She is currently the lead news anchor for Morning Express with Robin Meade. She was also the moderator on the Oprah Winfrey Network show Ask Oprah’s All Stars in 2011.
Meade has received a regional Emmy Award and adding to her achievements is her New York Times bestseller Morning Sunshine!: How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It Too. She also released two country music albums.
Rachel Maddow – $7m
Gradually becoming one of the most trusted reporters on TV today, Rachel Maddow worked her way to earn that trust. She is the first openly lesbian anchor to host a primetime news program in the United States. Maddow graduated with a degree in public policy at Stanford in 1994 and has a doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford.
She had her first radio hosting job at WRNX in 1999 while she was first seen on TV as a regular panelist on the MSNBC show Tucker. The liberal political commentator later became an MSNBC political analyst and was a regular panelist on Race for the White House. The first time she hosted a program was when she substituted for Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Eventually, she got her own nightly show The Rachel Maddow Show. Together with Brian Williams, Maddow is also the network’s special event co-anchor.
Wendy Williams – $15m
Wendy Williams hosts the popular TV talk show The Wendy Williams Show since 2008. She is known for her outspoken personality that has gotten her into several bouts with guests. Even way before her career on television, when she was a radio DJ, and host, her on-air feuds with celebrities have already made her a household name that she was made a subject of the reality TV series The Wendy Williams Experience.
Williams is also quite the businesswoman with her creations of product lines including a wig line, a jewelry collection, and a fashion line. She also has a New York Times best-selling autobiography and six other books. She was also inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009. She even has a street renamed after her.