The leisure enterprise has seen greater days.
Film and TV manufacturing inside the U.S. rose 18% remaining yr nevertheless lagged 2022 ranges, in response to ProPro, which tracks studio productions. Theatrical ticket product sales fell 3.3% in 2024 and keep virtually 25% down from pre-pandemic ranges. Media conglomerates are spinning off cable channels at a dizzying payment, an acknowledgment of the harm that streaming has carried out to that cash cow. And tech giants like Amazon and Apple, which elbowed into the content material materials enterprise quite a few years prior to now, have found that it’s rather a lot harder to make a gift that people care about than it’s to advertise them paper towels and iPhones.
Cutbacks and layoffs are the order of the day. However for some motive the spirit of economizing didn’t extend to the chief suites. Seven of the ten CEOs and media barons whose pay packages we have a look at as part of our annual survey of compensation purchased raises. And normally, the bumps had been double-digit ones even if their outcomes had been usually lackluster at biggest.
“When the stock is up, CEOs always take credit score rating, nevertheless when it plunges, they not typically take obligation,” says Charles Elson of the Faculty of Delaware’s John L. Weinberg Coronary heart for Firm Governance. “There must be further alignment between pay packages and effectivity so when there’s a foul yr, the CEOs take further of profitable.”
To be trustworthy, just a few of those executives will end up banking far decrease than what’s reported. That’s because of the stock awards and decisions signify trustworthy price as of the grant date and don’t replicate exact dollar portions acquired by executives. If the company’s price shrinks, so does their compensation. In any case, if it’ll improve, their windfall may presumably be even bigger than it initially appeared in public filings.
The pay packages may be largely undiminished, nevertheless our guidelines of excessive executives shrank. Paramount Worldwide hoped to have finalized its sale to Skydance Media by now, nevertheless the Trump administration and the president’s lawsuit in opposition to “60 Minutes” appears to be holding up regulatory approval. Nonetheless, Bob Bakish, who left Paramount amid the company’s deal talks with Skydance, has already profited handsomely, incomes $87 million remaining yr, which includes $69.3 million in severance. Then there’s Endeavor, which went private as soon as extra after 4 years as a publicly traded agency. Ari Emanuel, the brash agent who led the company’s whipsaw transformation, purchased a $173.8 million cash payout for his efforts.
Paramount Worldwide will most likely rapidly have agency, as most enterprise observers depend on that completely different media corporations are looking for patrons (speculation usually amenities on Warner Bros. Discovery, which has endured two traumatic mergers over the earlier seven years and formally separated its TV enterprise from its studio and streaming operations). Consultants like Elson say corporations usually have good causes for selling themselves or shopping for each other. Nevertheless he moreover notes that there’s usually a strong financial incentive for the people on the excessive to make these types of presents.
“The synergies that embody a merger will probably be pretty helpful, nevertheless it’s a should to make sure that the value monetary financial savings are literally there,” he says. “Typically these presents are further ego pushed and switch into disasters.”
Historically, media chieftains are significantly better compensated than leaders in several industries. Lots of that has to do with the possession building of leisure conglomerates corresponding to Comcast and Fox, which have dual-class stock. That gives the households behind them rather a lot tighter administration, enabling them to reward themselves with out risking rather a lot interference from frequent shareholders. This, in flip, skews the pay packages of media corporations like Disney and Netflix, which aren’t run by households nevertheless justify rewarding their executives with giant bonuses and decisions because of they’re part of the similar peer group. It helps that the boards of these corporations are typically loaded with sympathetic allies.
“Board members themselves are properly paid,” says Rosanna Landis Weaver of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. “It’s a very comfy gig. And no board member ever purchased requested to depart for saying, ‘Let’s pay the CEO further.’”
Working a media agency requires a very particular set of experience. A worthwhile media CEO need to be most people face of a corporation — telegenic, amiable, able to work a room — and as well as perform an envoy to Wall Highway at a time when consumers have grown further skeptical regarding the long-term properly being of the leisure enterprise.
Merely look how powerful it was for Bob Chapek, the short-lived CEO of Disney, whose tenure was so rocky that the company reenlisted Bob Iger, the particular person he succeeded, as his various. However when media conglomerates rationalize giving their leaders extravagant pay packages because of they’re frightened that one different agency goes to poach them or that they might go away of their very personal volition, they should perhaps assume as soon as extra.
“The issue regarding the media enterprise is that these jobs are pleasant,” says David L. Yermack, professor of finance at NYU. “You get to have quite a few have an effect on on society, and shaping custom is fascinating work. Working a coal mine or being inside the utilities enterprise isn’t anyplace near as fascinating.”
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Disney
Image Credit score rating: John Nacion for Choice Bob Iger, CEO
2024 compensation: $41.4M/+31%
Median employee compensation: $55,111
Iger pay ratio to median employee: 746How do you determine a job properly carried out? When it obtained right here to Iger’s $7.2 million bonus, Disney’s board gave him credit score rating for releasing “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which the family-friendly mannequin enthused was “the very best grossing R-rated film ever,” along with for presiding over the best-attended D23 event in historic previous and major a corporation dubbed actually certainly one of America’s most trusted by no a lot much less an authority than Newsweek. It’s hardly an empirical analysis, nevertheless Iger did have a worthwhile 2024, one which observed the studio topping its rivals on the sector office and releasing streaming hits like “Shōgun.” For Iger’s efforts, his comparatively modest $1 million wage purchased augmented by larger than $30 million in stock decisions and awards, along with $523,685 in non-public air journey and $1.4 million in security. It pays to rule the Magic Kingdom.
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Netflix
Image Credit score rating: Getty Pictures (Sarandos); Courtesy {photograph} (Peters) Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO
2024 compensation: $61.9M/+24.3%Greg Peters, Co-CEO
2024 compensation: $60.3M/+50.2%Median employee compensation: $215,503
Sarandos/Peters pay ratio to median employee: 287/280Bingeing has been glorious to Netflix’s co-leaders. Ultimate yr, the company targeted $40 million in full compensation apiece. Every purchased larger than 50% of that, due to the streamer’s stellar effectivity. The company ended 2024 with 301.6 million subscribers (up 16%) and generated working income of larger than $10 billion. The stock soared 89% for the yr, dispelling any doubts regarding the unusual two-in-a-box administration building. For 2024, Sarandos and Peters each acquired a $12 million cash bonus plus stock valued at $42.7 million, with Netflix’s compensation committee citing “our glorious relative stock price effectivity compared with constituents of the S&P 500.” Within the meantime, co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings’ pay bundle deal dropped to $1.75 million remaining yr (from $11.3 million in 2023). Don’t go the hat for Hastings — he owned 4.23 million Netflix shares as of early April.
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Warner Bros. Discovery
Image Credit score rating: Virisa Yong for Choice David Zaslav, CEO and president
2024 compensation: $51.9M/+4.4%
Median employee compensation: $130,316
Zaslav pay ratio to median employee: 398Few would stage to the marriage of Warner Bros. and Discovery and declare it a glittering success. The media conglomerate’s market cap hovers at $22 billion, roughly half of the place it stood in 2022 when the companies joined forces. Like many leisure giants, Warner Bros. Discovery has struggled to deal with the contraction of the theatrical movie enterprise and the collapse of cable, its main revenue. However Zaslav, the precept architect of the merger, continues to be rewarded handsomely. His $51.9 million compensation bundle deal encompasses a $23.9 million bonus (larger than 100% of the aim amount), along with a $3 million base wage, one different $23 million in stock awards, a $17,446 automotive allowance and 250 hours of private flight time yearly on the corporate jet.
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Comcast
Image Credit score rating: Virisa Yong for Choice (Roberts); Golden Globes (Cavanagh) Brian Roberts, CEO and chairman
2024 compensation: $33.9M/-4.5%Michael Cavanagh, President
2024 compensation: $28.25M/-4.5%Median employee compensation: $89,237
Roberts pay ratio to median employee: 380Roberts and chief lieutenant Cavanagh purchased giant bonuses remaining yr — merely not as fat as they’d been in 2023. Comcast grew on the very best and bottom traces in 2024, whereas free cash transfer (a component used to search out out authorities compensation) declined 3.8% to $12.5 billion. The board’s compensation committee determined that the company’s excessive execs had been entitled to cash bonuses equal to 109% of aim. Nevertheless every Roberts and Cavanagh “requested that they not get hold of larger than 100% of their aim bonuses,” in response to Comcast’s proxy submitting, settling for $7.5 million. In discussing their effectivity, the company cited the plan led by the pair to spin off NBCUniversal’s cable TV networks (excluding Bravo) and complementary digital belongings. The model new public agency, Versant, is able to separate from its guardian by the highest of 2025.
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Fox Corp.
Image Credit score rating: WireImage (Lachlan Murdoch); Getty Pictures (Rupert Murdoch) Lachlan Murdoch, CEO and authorities chair
2024 compensation: $23.8M/+9.3%Rupert Murdoch, Chairman emeritus
2024 compensation: $21.2M/-7.7%Median employee compensation: $89,068
Lachlan Murdoch pay ratio to median employee: 267Rupert Murdoch, 94, formally retired in November 2023. Nevertheless the TV data, sports activities actions and leisure agency he constructed continued to pay him generously. As chairman emeritus, he had a compensation bundle deal totaling $21.2 million for the fiscal yr ended June 2024, which included $8.6 million value of stock and decisions and a $2.3 million bonus “following 71 years of service to the company,” per Fox Corp.’s annual proxy submitting. Eldest son Lachlan Murdoch, who now runs the media empire, observed his pay climb 9.3% largely due to a $6 million cash bonus (versus $4.5 million in fiscal 2023) primarily based totally on “quantitative” and “qualitative” effectivity parts evaluated by the board. “Fox as quickly as as soon as extra delivered sturdy operational and financial ends in fiscal 2024,” the company said in its proxy submitting, along with Fox Info ending the interval as a result of the No. 1 cable neighborhood amongst full viewers for the eighth straight yr.
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Apple
Image Credit score rating: Virisa Yong for Choice Tim Put together dinner, CEO
2024 compensation: $74.6M/+18%
Median employee compensation: $114,738
Put together dinner pay ratio to median employee: 650After docking Put together dinner’s stock incentives in 2023, Apple determined that it wasn’t paying him ample. Based mostly totally on an analysis of CEO compensation at “peer corporations” along with Amazon, Disney and Netflix, the tech large boosted the aim price of Put together dinner’s equity award for fiscal 2024 from $40 million to $50 million. Put together dinner’s stock grants had been calculated to be value $58 million. To ensure, the tech large saved minting money: Apple revenue hit a file $391 billion (up 2%) for the fiscal yr ended September 2024, whereas web income declined 3% to (solely!) $93.7 billion. Of bear in mind: Apple’s suppliers biz, which includes the App Retailer and Apple TV+, generated $96 billion for the yr, up virtually 13%. In justifying Put together dinner’s enlarged stock grant, the board’s compensation committee cited “the have an effect on his administration has on the company’s short-term and long-term success.”
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Amazon
Image Credit score rating: FilmMagic Andy Jassy, CEO
2024 compensation: $1.6M/+17.6%
Median employee compensation: $37,181
Jassy pay ratio to median employee: 43Don’t be fooled: Jassy earns further for working the e-commerce mega-company than the amount listed for his 2024 compensation on Amazon’s proxy assertion. As reported under SEC pointers, the CEO was paid $1.6 million remaining yr. Nevertheless the majority of Jassy’s remuneration is in stock awards that vest over quite a few years (which Amazon reported as compensation for 2021). Based mostly on Amazon, Jassy’s 2024 “realized compensation” elevated by 37%, to $40.1 million, because of agency’s stock price helpful properties. That obtained right here after his realized comp decreased by 12% in 2023. In his April 10 annual letter to shareholders, Jassy touted the company’s rising leisure lineup, along with originals like “Reacher,” “Fallout,” “The Boys” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Vitality” and reside sports activities actions identical to the NFL’s “Thursday Night Soccer” — with the NBA and Nascar coming later this yr.