14. William Hartnell Received Only £315 Per Episode
The First Doctor received pittance for his performance, at the grand total of £315 a week. This is equivalent to roughly £4,050 nowadays, which doesn't even total £200,000 a year (the show had 48 of 52 production weeks a year). Compared with recent actors, this is very little. David Tennant reportedly earned almost £1million a year for his role as the Tenth Doctor, whilst his successor Matt Smith took a pay cut totalling almost £600,000 a year. And all of this doesnt take into account the huge amounts of money generated from merchandise. This is obviously due to the popularity that Doctor Who had garnered over the years, but it does put the original actors into perspective. Hartnells 1966 co-stars Anneke Wills (Polly) and Michael Craze (Ben Jackson) respectively earned only £68 and £52 per episode.
