Walt Disney Co. CEO and Chairman Robert Iger’s total compensation was $43.9 million during the company’s most recent fiscal year, according to an SEC filing. His compensation during fiscal 2016, which ended Oct. 1, was down 2.3% from $44.9 million a year earlier.
President and CEO Gracia Matore (left) earned $12.4 million in total compensation in 2014, while broadcasting chief Dave Lougee earned $2.49 million, the company’s annual proxy filing shows.Gannett paid its five top executives collectively more than $24 million in the year.
Disney Chairman-CEO Robert Iger’s compensation jumped to $43.7 million in 2014. The change came in the form of a larger bonus: $22.8 million, up 68% from the year before. The company disclosed the compensation package Friday in its annual proxy statement filed with regulators.
The media industry’s top executives reaped the benefits of a strong 2013 when companies like Fox, Disney and CBS all saw their stocks climb by double digits.
After stock options, reward options and bonuses, media moguls can see their compensation packages skyrocket. At $62.2 million, Leslie Moonves of CBS Corp. tops the list as the highest-paid media CEO. He received a $27 million bonus in 2012.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s $36.6 million of compensation last year makes her the top-earning new-media chief executive, according to analysis from SNL Kagan. Her old boss, Google’s Larry Page, was at the other end of the spectrum, earning just $1 in pay in 2012.
Exclusives
No surprise about who topped the list of 2012′s highest paid CEOs at the media companies whose compensation practices Deadline tracks most closely. CBS’s Les Moonves returns to the head of the pack with $62.2 million, even though his package was 11.1% smaller than it was in 2011. That was an anomaly: The top 20 collectively made $542.7 million, up from $416.6 million in 2011, according to company proxy statements filed at the SEC. It took $25.9 million to crack the top 10.
Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts ranks in the middle of the media pack in terms of salary and perks. Roberts received $29 million in compensation last year, an increase of 8% over 2011, according to a regulatory filing by the company Friday. One of Roberts’ ranking lieutenants, Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, got a double-digit bump, receiving $26.3 million in compensation in 2012, an 11.3% increase over the previous year.
Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes took a pay cut in 2011 — albeit a mere 1%. The head of the media conglomerate saw his compensation shrink from $26.3 million in 2010 to $25.9 million last year because the company “did not surpass [its] financial targets by as great an amount as it did in 2010,” according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
More than a dozen WGBH Boston honchos at PBS’s taxpayer-subsidized flagship station are raking in upwards of $200,000 a year while toiling in the lap of a luxurious $85 million multimedia palace dubbed the “Taj Mahal.”
