FOOTLOOSE AND…
It is true. Discovery Communications pays its boss man, David Zaslav, $156 million a year to run the company. Wow! I am impressed. I wonder what his daily diary looks like?
But wait, there are a cadre of other media head men who make out rather well, too. For example, Les Moonves, the CBS mogul, rides into second place in the top pay parade at a whopping $54.4 million per year. I wonder what he pays for a business suit these days?
Ah, there is also Philippe Dauman, the Viacom chief, cook and bottle washer, who, at $44.3 million, edges out Robert Iger of Walt Disney ($43.7 million) and Marissa Mayer of Yahoo ($42.1 million). Just behind is Leonard Schleifer, leader of Regenerer Pharmaceuticals, who rakes in $42 million.
The happy-go-lucky list goes on to Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, who gets along on $39.9 million, and Jeffrey Leiden, from Vertex, making $36.6 million. Bringing up the rear of the top ten list are Brian Roberts of Comcast at $33 million and Jeffrey Bewkes of Time Warner, counting his pennies up to $32.7 million.
No doubt, the heavily laden salaries are influenced by the huge “take homes” of the communication industries’ salaries of directors, actors and writers, who often do very well financially. It is fair to indicate that where the talent gets sizeable salaries, the top men do proportionally better. But $156.1 million dollars per year (not including perks)?
Interestingly, according to Standard & Poor’s, compensation for the big bosses on their 500 List rose to a record $10.6 million last year.
