Monday, November 11, 2019

Time To Rollback U.S. Corporate Media CEO Salaries?

Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav: Paid $129.4 Million In 2018
Most U.S. corporate media firms generally fail to allow most anti-war and anti-imperialist U.S. working-class people the same amount of daily U.S. mass media news department coverage that they generally provide to millionaire, multi-millionaire, billionaire and multi-billionaire "entertainment" celebrities, politicians, plutocrats, jocks and upper-middle-class journalists/propagandists.  One reason might be that, under the current U.S. economic and political system, the corporate folks who are CEO's of most U.S. corporate media firms are apparently allowed by the U.S. congress to pay themselves a lot more in annual salaries each year than the annual wages that most U.S. workers are paid in the 21st-century.

In 2018, for example, the CEO of Discovery (which owns U.S. corporate television networks like the Discovery Channel, HGTV and Food Network), David Zaslav, was allowed to take home a total annual pay compensation of $129.4 million. And that same year, Walt Disney/ABC CEO Robert Iger was allowed to take home a total annual pay compensation of $65.6 million.

The CEO's of Netflix, Comcast, Activision Blizard, ATT & T, Omnicom, Facebook Inc., Viacom and Interpublic Group were also allowed by the U.S. congress to pay themselves a lot more than what you were probably able to earn in 2018. Netflix CEO Reed Hasting's total annual pay in 2018 was $36.1 million; while Comcast CEO Brian Roberts' total annual pay was $35.8 million during that same year. 

Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick's 2018 total annual pay was $30.8 million; while AT & T CEO Randall Stephenson was paid $29.1 million during that same year. In addition, Omnicom CEO John Wren was paid $23.9 million in 2018 and Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was paid $22.6 million during that same year.

And, finally, Viacom CEO Robert Bakish was allowed by the U.S. Congress to pay himself a total annual salary of $20 million in 2018; while Interpublic Group CEO Michael Roth was allowed to take home an annual salary of $17 million during that same year.

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