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.
Jim Rome – $30m
Jim Rome is a sports radio talk show host who started his career as an intern at KTMS station in Santa Barbara. He later became a traffic-update reporter. He then moved to XTRA Sports as a part-timer, but since he was so good, he was given his own radio show called The Jim Rome Show or The Jungle. For a couple of years, he also hosted sports television shows such as The FX Sports Show on FX, Talk2 on ESPN2, and The Last Word on Fox Sports Net.
In 2003, he was hired to host Rome is Burning on ESPN, which aired until 2011 when he joined the CBS network. He hosted Rome as well as a monthly TV sport and entertainment talk show on Showtime called Jim Rome on Showtime. Rome has been named as one of the most influential talk radio personalities according to Talkers Magazine.
Ann Curry – $5 Million
Ann Curry has been a reporter for more than 30 years, but just like most journalists, she started as an intern. She worked at then NBC-affiliate KTVL in Oregon and made her way up to become the station’s first female news reporter. She worked at another NBC-affiliate station before moving to Los Angeles as a reporter for KCBS-TV where she received two Emmy Awards. In 2012, she finally rose to become the national and international correspondent–anchor for NBC News. She was also a co-anchor of Today from 2011 to 2012 after being the news anchor since 1997. From 2005 to 2011, Curry also anchored Dateline NBC.
Curry has reported from war-stricken countries such as Darfur, Syria, Congo, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel and her reporting often focused on human suffering in natural disasters and war zones. In 2015, Curry founded her own multi-platform media startup while continuing to do major news interviews on network television.
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.
Michael Strahan – $17m
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.