It's surprising to most people that most famous magicians make zero dollars from their TV shows and TV appearances. In fact, most of them actually lose money when they go on telly. Some plunge hundreds of thousands of dollars into their new series. While others drop everything, cancel gigs, pay for flights out of pocket and build new props to appear on a TV show.
But if magicians are not making money from their TV shows, why do they do them? And more importantly, how are they making their money? Big names in magic make millions every year. The money must be coming from somewhere.
And it's not just the famous names making a lot of money. Some non-famous magicians follow the same monetisation strategy as the most famous magicians in the world, who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The good news is that you can do the same and learn from famous magicians.
Why television?
I think one of the things I always found amusing about magic Facebook groups was the fact that there's routinely a debate about exposure. In which semi-pro magicians rant about how you should never do a gig for exposure.
So why do big-name magicians perform on television? Well, the answer: exposure.
Or better yet, how they like to refer to it, marketing.
Almost every TV magician I've worked with has made little or no money or even lost money on their television appearances. They view it as marketing and the big end of a funnel – that's the open end that's big and wide and captures as much water (or, in this case, as many paying clients as possible).
