Bloated CEO Pay at Top Media Companies Still Persists Despite Efforts Towards Change

Media conglomerate bosses like Les Moonves, Bob Iger and Philippe P. Dauman consistently rank among highest paid CEOs in America

The wage gap in America has become a hotter than ever topic in recent years, but there is still a long way to go before bloated executive compensation will be curbed in any significant fashion, according to a new New York Times report.

New York Times points to the chumminess of committees who make decisions on executive compensations as the key reason executives continue to reap eyebrow-raising rewards.

“The inside, clubby mentality of being in the right group at the right time is still the way to get paid at big American companies,” Columbia professor of corporate governance Robert Jackson Jr. told the Times. “Even after say-on-pay, even after disclosure rules, even after the financial crisis, it shows how much work we still have to do.”

CBS head Leslie Moonves, who took took home a $25 million cash bonus, Viacom’s Philippe P. Dauman, who received a $20 million cash bonus, and Robert Iger, head of Walt Disney, who was awarded a cash bonus just below $23 million, were listed as examples of executives who received sky high compensation packages in 2014.

There is also Discovery Communications’ David M. Zaslav, who took in $156 million last year, making him the highest-paid executive of an American public company.

Despite federal regulations and “public shaming” aimed at curtailing the practice, many experts seem to believe there’s still a long ways to go before executives are brought down to more moderate levels of compensation while the average workers’ salary increases and there can be a true closing of the wage gap.

However, there are also those who defend big pay days for high level executives.

“Movie stars and sports stars get paid a lot for a very unique skill set,” Gerard Leider of Meridian Compensation Partners pointed out to the newspaper. “Some of these C.E.O.s have very unique skill sets.”

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