The thousands of former interns for "Saturday Night Live" and other shows reached a $6.4M settlement in their class-action lawsuit against NBCUniversal Wednesday.

Former interns claimed that they should have been paid for their work. There were claims that said NBCUniversal violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and state laws in New York, California and Connecticut when it classified the former interns as "non-employee interns," exempt from applicable wage and hour requirements.

Although agreeing to settle, NBCUniversal denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. The settlement requires court approval while reports show the average payout will be $505.

"It was probably a good idea for NBCUniversal to settle," Marcia McCormick, an employment law professor at Saint Louis University School of Law told Reuters. "NBCUniversal ran the risk that its decision not to pay interns might be viewed by a court as willful, which could result in much higher damages."

NBCUniversal is not the first to be smacked with a lawsuit from former interns. Many other companies, including 21st Century Fox Inc's Fox Searchlight Pictures and publishing houses Conte Nast and Hearst, ran into the same issue of not paying their interns or paying them below minimum wage.

The Manhattan judge said interns should be paid, even if they are getting hands-on training and building their resumes. U.S. Department of Labor guidelines for internships say interns deserve pay because their work directly benefits paid employees.

"NBCUniversal's settlement suggests that employers and their lawyers are concluding that many unpaid internships in the private sector would violate minimum wage laws," said David Yamada, an employment law professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.

"A settlement of this size indicates that this employer saw the handwriting on the wall."

Conde Nast ended its internship program last October as a result of the lawsuit.