$10,000 per person per episode for Season 2 -- or they all walk away. The New York Post reported Saturday that cast members of the hit MTV show, including the popular Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, "Pauly D" Delvecchio, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino and Jenni "J-Woww" Farley, have agreed to bargain for increased pay for Season 2 or they will not return for a second season.
What? No Season 2 of "Jersey Shore"? Whatever would MTV replace the hit show with -- music videos?
Reportedly, the cast members of the wildly popular reality show that follows the lives of eight housemates as they live, work, and party in and around Seaside Heights, New Jersey,
only receive a few hundred dollars each per episode. But as one controversy led to another, from the flap over the show being excessively laden with Italian American stereotypes to the fact that the housemates weren't even natives of the area to the "Snooki gets punched" videos, "Jersey Shore" became a bona fide television hit and pop culture phenomenon. On the season finale, the show scored 4.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen, nearly tripling their season opener audience and increasing by one fourth (1.2 million) over the previous week's numbers, which scored #1 in the 18-34 age demographic and placed the show firmly in the Top 25 Cable shows of the week (#1

ending January 17. The show's finale should put the show near the top position.
And the individual cast members are a hit as well. The Post reported that some cast members are pulling in $10,000 per personal appearance on the club circuit. The cast has been invited to Sean "P Diddy" Combs' son's 'Sweet Sixteen' party and there are rumors suggesting that Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi has been invited to the Grammys by none other than Ellen Degeneres.
But are the "Jersey Shore" gang worth $10,000 per cast member per episode? Of course they are.