Media CEOs Reigned in 2018 Pay
By: Wall Street Journal
June 27, 2019
Media titans came under heavy scrutiny in 2018 for their business practices and deal making, but they were well-compensated for their trouble.
The S&P 500’s communication-services sector, a group that includes Facebook Inc., Walt Disney Co. and AT&T Inc., posted a median CEO pay of $22.6 million in 2018, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, higher than any other sector and more than $10 million above the median pay of S&P chief executives as a group.
The sector included two of the five highest-paid CEOs in the Journal’s analysis of the index. David Zaslav of Discovery Inc., one of the sector’s smallest companies, had a $129.4 million pay package, more than any other CEO, as the owner of television networks such as Discovery Channel, HGTV and Food Network posted a total shareholder return of 10.6% for the year. A spokesman for Discovery said Mr. Zaslav’s compensation is mostly made up of performance-based equity over the next five years and is 97% at risk
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