Before becoming a media personality, Michael Strahan was a professional football player/defensive who played with the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL) for 15 years. He helped the Giants win over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVII in his final season in 2007. Once he retired from the NFL, he worked as a sports analyst, but he also tried different types of reporting.
Aside from being a football analyst on Fox NFL Sunday, he also co-hosted ABC’s Strahan and Sara and was previously on the talk show Live! With Kelly and Michael with Kelly Ripa. The show gave him two Daytime Emmy Awards. In 2014, he worked on Good Morning America and by 2016, he left Live! to join GMA full time.
Martha Raddatz – $2.5m
Even though Martha Raddatz dropped out of college, she had a good start to her broadcasting career. She first worked at a local station in Utah and later, became a chief correspondent at WCVB-TV, an ABC News Boston affiliate. In 1993, she covered the Pentagon for National Public Radio. She came to ABC News in 1999 and was the State Department correspondent, and in May 2003, she became the senior national security correspondent. She reported extensively from Iraq and in June 2006, Raddatz and ABC News were the first in the world to break the news of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death and his location.
Raddatz is now ABC’s Chief Global Affairs Correspondent and reports for World News Tonight with David Muir and Nightline. She is also the main fill-in anchor for This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Samantha Steele Ponder – $5m
Everyone knows her beautiful face, so it’s no wonder she earns such a massive-- salary. Samantha Steele Ponder is an ESPN sportscaster and is known for her work on College GameDay, where she replaced Erin Andrews in 2012. She is one of the most beloved reporters on ESPN and currently hosts Sunday NFL Countdown.
Ponder attended King’s College in Queens, New York, but she eventually graduated from Liberty University. It was in King’s College where she met Ben Keeperman, a college football researcher and manager with ABC Sports Radio. Her connection with Keeperman led to an internship at ABC, which then gave her the researcher-assistant job with ABC’s college football studio show. Once she transferred to Liberty University, she got a job as a sideline reporter—an offer from Liberty’s Sr. Sports Producer Bruce Carey. As a sports reporter, she met her husband NFL player Christian Ponder.
Maria Bartiromo – $6m
Terence Patrick “Terry” Moran’s broadcasting experience began in 1990 when he worked as a correspondent and anchor for Court TV. Among his notable coverage were the murder trials of Lyle and Erik Menendez and O.J. Simpson as well as the Bosnian war crime trials at The Hague. In 1997, he moved to ABC News and hard work made him win a Peabody Award for his report on the ABC documentary Out of Control: AIDS in Black America.
In 2013, Bartiromo moved to Fox Business Network and Fox News. She hosts Mornings with Maria, Wall Street Week with Maria Bartiromo, and Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. She also writes a monthly column called “One-On-One” for USA Today.
Kelly Ripa – $16 Million
Kelly Ripa first appeared on television not as a journalist or anchor but as a dancer and actress. She appeared on Dancin’ On Air in 1986. Her next television exposure was on the famed ABC daytime soap opera All My Children where she was cast as Hayley Vaughn. She took on the role from 1990 until 2002, but she always wanted to be a newscaster. So when Regis Philbin held on-air auditions to find for Kathie Lee Gifford’s replacement, Ripa took the chance, and the rest is history.
She landed the co-hosting spot and became the official replacement in 2001. The show was then called Live! with Regis and Kelly. When Regis left, Michael Strahan replaced him, but he moved to Good Morning America, and Ryan Seacrest took over. Ripa also has appeared in several films including Marvin’s Room. In 2014, she was named by Hollywood Reporter as one of the Most Powerful People in Media.