Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen saw his compensation go up dramatically in 2020 to $94.7 million, according to an SEC filing.
How much of an increase was it? In 2019, Ergen took home $2.36 million. The massive rise in his 2020 pay was due to an option award worth a whopping $91.9 million. If you take that out, his pay is more in-line with his average at $2.8 million.
Ergen’s base salary was $888,462 for the fiscal 2020 year, which was down slightly from the $1 million he pulled in during the last two years. All the top executives’ base salary declined from 2019 thanks to a pay cut due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But as you can see, they didn’t really lose that much in compensation last year.
W. Erik Carlson, Dish Network’s president and CEO, took home a more meager $3.3 million in 2020, while CFO Paul Orban’s compensation was $1.2 million.
Dish is a satellite-TV provider based in Englewood, Colorado. The company had a spike in popularity — and stock price — in late 2014/early 2015 but the era of cord-cutting took a big bite out of that.
Rival DirecTV is being spun off by AT&T into a separate company with TPG Capital taking a minority stake. They have not ruled out of a future merger with Dish Network, something Ergen has spoken openly about.
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