'Money talks' - Graham Norton enjoys €2.47m pay packet in 2025

Gordon Deegan

Chat show king Graham Norton enjoyed a bumper pay packet of £2.12 million (€2.47 million) from his TV work for So Television last year.

That is according to new accounts filed by ITV subsidiary So Television, which produces the multi-award-winning The Graham Norton Show and sells it to the BBC and to TV stations across the world, including Virgin Media here.

The accounts lodged with Companies House in the UK show that the pay to Norton reduced by 13 per cent to £2.12m in 2025.

The £2.12 million in pay to Norton last year compares to £2.77 million for 2023.

The 2025 pay to Norton - who grew up in Bandon, Co Cork - works out at an average £101,260 (€118,315) per episode for each of the original 21 Graham Norton Shows Norton presented in 2025.

This summer, Norton was one of scores of VIP guests to attend the Taylor Swift - Travis Kelce wedding at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Swift has appeared on the Graham Norton Show a number of times and the Fate of Ophelia singer's most recent appearance was in October 2025.

Last year, So Television confirmed that it agreed a deal with the BBC for three further years of the flagship chat-show, which continues to attract entertainment A-listers.

The show continues to be strongly supportive of Irish stars and in 2025, actors Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Jessie Buckley, Nicola Coughlan and singer, Hozier joined the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Lawrence and Kim Kardashian on the couch.

The BBC said that its 2025 series averaged 2.9 million viewers per episode across the run, retaining its status as the biggest chat show in the UK and Irish markets, and it also continues to generate millions of global video views across YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

The three-year deal is to commence later this year with the broadcast of Series 34, which is due to commence at the end of September.

The Graham Norton Show started on BBC Two in 2007 where it ran for two series before moving to BBC One.

Norton’s pay - made up of presenter fees, production fees and royalties - declined last year after So Television’s revenues decreased by 16 per cent from £10.04 million to £8.44 million.

However, operating profits - due in part to Norton’s pay-cut for 2025 - doubled from £522,211 to £1.087 million.

So Television relies on The Graham Norton Show for the vast bulk of its revenues and the firm’s UK revenues decreased by 15 per cent to £6.58 million as ‘rest of world’ revenues, which includes its income from Virgin Media here, dipped by 19 per cent to £1.86m.

Norton’s TV fees are the entertainer’s main income stream.

Norton’s novels are also bestsellers, and his critically acclaimed works of fiction, Holding, Home Stretch, A Keeper, Forever Home, Frankie and The Swimmer have generated millions in sales in Ireland and the UK since 2016, according to Nielsen BookData, though the author receives only a small fraction of the sales figure in royalties.

Born in Dublin, Norton - who turned 63 this year - first shot to prominence in 1996 for his part of Father Noel Furlong in 'Father Ted' before he moved to Channel 4 to host his own chat show.

Numbers employed by So Television last year remained at 11, and staff costs increased from £1.98 million to £2.145 million.