Friends: How much the sitcom cast, including Matthew Perry, make from reruns of the show

It's been almost 20 years since hit sitcom Friends came to an end - but it's become a cult classic and has won legions of fans from across the generations.

Reruns of the show, which aired in America between 1994 and 2004, have been broadcast on various channels in different countries across the world over the last two decades. People of all ages have fallen in love with the sitcom, and that means that the reruns have always been available to watch. More recently, the show has been available to binge on Netflix.

As a result, the cast have continued to make lots of money from their roles even after all these years, including the late Matthew Perry who played the sarcastic but loveable Chandler Bing. The other principle cast members are Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green), Courteney Cox (Monica Geller/Bing), David Schwimmer (Ross Geller), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay) and Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani).

Warner Bros is earning $1bn (around £824,538,000) a year from syndication revenue, according to USA Today. The six main cast members reportedly earn two per cent of the show’s syndication revenue, which means they receive an annual income of $20m (around £16,497,640) each just from reruns.

When Friends first aired, each cast member was paid $22,500 (around £18,543) per episode, according to The Independent. But, as the popularity of the show continued to soar as the seasons progressed so did the amount of money that each of the actors took home.

However, by the third season, Perry, Aniston, Cox, Schwimmer, Kudrow and LeBlanc, were reportedly making $100,000 (around £82,413) per episode. By season nine, the cast had negotiated a salary of $1million (around £824,034) each per episode. At the time, this was the largest-ever salary paid to actors for a 30-minute television show.

It was during negotiations two years prior to this that it had been decided that the cast would receive syndication profits from the airing of the show. This was a benefit that had previously only been offered to stars who had ownership rights in a show, according to The New York Times.