Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav saw his total compensation tick up to $51.9 million in 2024, from $49.7 million in 2023.
The company released the figures in its annual proxy statement.
Zaslav is by far the best-compensated of any of the company’s top execs. For years, especially when he led Discovery, he was among the highest paid CEOs in corporate America.
J-B Perrette, head of streaming and games, saw his total pay decline slightly in 2024, to $19,7 million from $20.1 million. The other senior company execs were paid between $14.8 million and $17.8 million each.
The report coincided with the news that John Malone, a key architect of the 2022 merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, would be leaving the company’s board of directors. He is shifting to a chair emeritus role.
WBD has been under pressure from an activist investor, and has responded with a number of board changes in recent months. After accruing a stake of about 1% in WBD, hedge fund Sessa Capital has been agitating for the company to restructure. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Sessa pushed for more board members to be added as well as for the company to show more progress on addressing its linear TV holdings. WBD owns a lot of legacy cable networks, including CNN, TNT and Discovery, whose ratings and ad revenue are in secular decline due to cord-cutting.
WBD at the start of 2025 restructured the company into distinct divisions, which it said would unlock potential strategic opportunities, including M&A. Comcast is in the process of spinning off most of its NBCUniversal cable networks into a stand-alone company.
In the proxy, WBD said its annual shareholder meeting will be held June 2. Among the four proposals shareholders will vote on at the meeting is one requiring an advisory vote from shareholders on executive compensation, aka “say on pay.”
