Entertainment/Media Industry CEOs' Pay Just Keeps Growing

Economic downturns. Massive employee layoffs. Share prices plummeting. Yet would it be a surprise to you to discover that media moguls' compensation has risen both in 2021 and 2022!

Apple's Tim Cook hauled in over $100 million in compensation is 2022. While Alphabet's (Google) Sundar Pichai raked in over $225 million. These outlandish pay packages are a combination of bonuses, salary, and peaks (stock options and other benefits) - placing all of these CEOs firmly in the 1%ers.

CEO pay is always increasing.

Compensation never goes down no matter what the performance of the company. Good times or bad...their pay packages never recede.  When things go well, which one would expect, they are geniuses but when things go wrong, it's always due to 'external' factors. 

Take for example, Disney, where Bab Chapek ran the company for three years and in that time amassed a debt load of over $29 billion while the stock price nose-dived. Yet, on his departure he received a $20 million 'outgoing' comp package.

Companies, like Disney, Fox, and Comcast are so tightly controlled that their compensation committees don't have to worry about angry shareholders. 

Other than bonuses, most of these CEOs' compensation isn't tied to performance but is determined relative to what every other CEOs are being paid which just keeps ratcheting up automatically. 

Company        CEO             Pay          Aver. Employee    Ratio

Disney       Bob Iger          $15m           $54,000                446/1

Netflix      Reed Hastings    51m            218,000               234/1

Comcast   Brian Roberts      32m             83,000                385/1

Apple        Tim Cook           100m            84,000             1,177/1

Warners     David Zaslaw       40m           172,000               227/1

Paramount  Bob Bakish          32m           110,000               291/1

Fox           Rupert Murdoch     18m           91,000                237/1

Amazon     Andy Jasey               1m          34,000                  38/1

Meta         Mark Zuckerberg      27m         296,000                 91/1

Google       Sandar Pichai          226m        279,000                808/1    

Are the people that fill the CEO suite the best?

So, you decide. Do you think these CEOs are worth their pay? In good times and bad? In making the right decisions or wrong ones?

Are they really great at what they do? Never forget, they all have cadres of experts in marketing and promotion, production, team building, legal and accounting, etc., etc. at their disposal. 

By: Jim Lavorato, Entertainment Equipment Corp.