So with S7 under their existing contract, they probably would see another pay bump, maybe up to $200k per episode or $250k. They could have tried that earlier, but the longer they waited, the more the show's popularity grew and the more their leverage grew. Now you may be asking "wait, they started making big money in Season 7 not 8?" If memory serves, during the hiatus between S6 and S7 the Friends actors banded together to renegotiate. Guess what the actors' salary per episode was in Season 7? $750,000, the same that all 6 of them made together in Season 6. So in the case of Friends, the show kept growing and growing in popularity, and the actors kept making the same relatively modest salaries, even with the season-to-season escalator clauses.
THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY AMAZON TV
And this is pretty standard with any TV show contracts for anyone but big stars and for many shows, they get canceled well before they hit 7 seasons, but putting those numbers into the contracts protects the show's production company on the front end. Keep in mind these numbers were all locked in with the initial contracts that the actors signed before the show first aired - and before any of them really had garnered any fame (and hence, leverage at negotiations) to speak of. Meaning between the 6 of them, a S1 episode cost $135k in salary before a single frame of film had been shot whereas a S6 episode cost nearly that much for each of them, or $750k in salary, again before any other costs were accrued in make an episode. In Season 1, each of them made $22,500 per episode in Season 2, $40k per episode each in Season 3, $75k per episode each in Season 4, $85k per episode each in Season 5, $100k per episode each and in Season 6, $125k per episode each. But just to give you an idea, consider the 6 core cast of Friends Yes, if it makes biz sense to the show runners.