Media & Entertainment CEO Salary Breakdown
Bernstein Research analyst Michael Nathanson broke out Media CEO and CFO compensation for 2008, with special attention on CBS and Fox, giving Disney a slight pass as its exec bonuses are tied to shareholder returns. The top six include the major studios minus Sony (Stringer, Pascal, Lynton, Wiesenthal), NBC Universal (Immelt, Zucker, Meyer), Viacom/Paramount (Redstone, Grey) and upstart Dreamworks (Spielberg, Katzenberg, Geffen, Snider) .
Via Broadcasting & Cable and Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily:
- CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, who was paid $31.9 million last year
- Disney CEO Robert Iger, who earned $30.6 million
- News Corp #2 Chase Carey, who could haul in $43.1 million over the next year
- News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, who took home $27.5 million
- Viacom’s Philippe Dauman, who was paid $23 million
- Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who made $19.9 million
With the exception of Murdoch, the most entrepreneurial of the bunch; all are lifetime execs, which perhaps gives Murdoch the privilege to set his pay grade to his control, as well as pay Chase Carey as the “Peter Chernin replacement” similarly.
More via Broadcasting & Cable:
“News Corp.’s recent hiring of Chase Carey as President/Chief Operating Officer was re-affirmation of the fact that media executives, to borrow F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous quip, are ‘different from you and me,’” wrote Nathanson.
Carey, the former DirecTV CEO who began working for News Corp. in July, is receiving an $8.1 million a year salary, a $10 million signing bonus and up to $25 million a year performance bonus, according to filings.
Given the recessionary year of transition, it would be interesting would be to compare earnings to growth over multiple years and not just 2007-2008, and see trending, as well as how these well-paid execs gave back to philanthropy.
Do their comp packages make sense – only in as much as they transition their businesses smartly to deal with the economy and prepare for future change related to digital.
