{"id":945,"date":"2026-05-04T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/05\/04\/the-great-divide-hollywood-ceo-pay-mega-chart-revealed-plus-employee-ratios-union-salaries\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T13:45:00","slug":"the-great-divide-hollywood-ceo-pay-mega-chart-revealed-plus-employee-ratios-union-salaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/05\/04\/the-great-divide-hollywood-ceo-pay-mega-chart-revealed-plus-employee-ratios-union-salaries\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Divide: Hollywood CEO Pay Mega Chart Revealed \u2014 Plus Employee Ratios, Union Salaries"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tHollywood really is a larger-than-life version of corporate America, especially in the C-suite. Across all U.S. industries, median CEO pay hit $29.4 million in 2025, data firm Equilar finds. But for top entertainment execs, that\u2019s on the low end, per \u30cf\u30ea\u30a6\u30c3\u30c9\u30fb\u30ea\u30dd\u30fc\u30bf\u30fc<\/em>\u2019s annual look at the highest-paid media chiefs. Many of the moguls on our list made around $50 million. Or much more.<\/p>\n

\tNot only that, but the employee-to-CEO pay ratio is higher in entertainment. Across all industries, 341 employee salaries equal one CEO\u2019s take-home pay. That median is far exceeded at most of the major Hollywood companies tracked for this list (think 805-to-1 for former Disney chief Bob Iger). \u201cLarge stock awards drive much of this elevated pay,\u201d Equilar exec Amit Batish notes. <\/p>\n

\tLeading the way is David Zaslav, who took Warner Bros. Discovery from $9 a share to sell in a bidding war to David Ellison\u2019s Paramount for $31 a share. His pay last year, $165 million, was only trounced by his 2021 package of $246.6 million, driven by a $202 million stock option grant related to a\u00a0contract extension and the WarnerMedia merger. And both of those years are far outweighed by his golden parachute \u2014 which may total between $550 million and $887 million, depending on the value of stock options and when the megadeal closes. (In a non-binding vote on April 23, 82 percent of WBD shareholders rejected Zaslav\u2019s parachute.)<\/p>\n

\t\u201cA golden parachute itself is not necessarily unusual, but this size is unheard of,\u201d Jun Frank, head of compensation & governance services at ISS-Corporate. \u201cMany of these exit packages can be quite controversial because it\u2019s a really big sum,\u201d adding, \u201cand certain provisions, such as last-minute sweeteners, tend to trigger more concern.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\tJust look at one of the newest captains of entertainment industry, Paramount CEO David Ellison, whose Skydance closed the acquisition of the venerable Hollywood company in August. That megadeal helped him collect a huge pay package worth more than $60 million last year, even if mostly in stock awards that vest over five years, beaming him up into the top ranks of sector paydays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tComcast honcho Michael Cavanagh\u2019s ascent also continued, with his $70 million-topping package putting him into the upper echelon of the annual entertainment industry top executive compensation list for 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tThe lion\u2019s share of Cavanagh\u2019s pay came, just like in the case of Ellison, in the form of stock awards, a big portion of them being tied to his promotion in December to the co-CEO role, which he started this year. Such stock awards are based on the fair value price on the grant date, so they may end up being worth far less or more, depending on where the stock price goes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\u201cExecutive pay has been on the rise throughout corporate America,\u201d notes Chris Crawford, managing director, executive compensation, at consulting firm Gallagher. \u201cWhether it is going through volatility, whether it is mergers, which are happening across entertainment right now \u2013 those factors will drive larger one-time packages,\u201d including for newly hired, promoted or exiting managers.<\/p>\n

\tISS-Corporate Media & Entertainment, a unit of proxy advisory Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), also crunched some of the early pay data for the past year, focusing on 318 companies listed on the broad-based S&P 500 stock index, at which the CEO was in the same role for the previous filing years. Companies in the media & entertainment sector that fit this criteria saw the most drastic increase in CEO compensation, with a median rise of 117 percent, while their median total shareholder return, a metric looking at stock price and dividends, was down 28.6 percent.<\/p>\n

\tLawrence Cunningham, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, told THR<\/em>: \u201cMedia comp has tended to be higher than corporate America\u2019s medians for various reasons, including industry flash that elevates creativity and persona alongside the primary CEO skills, such as capital allocation, management and leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tCEO pay ratios at some Hollywood giants are also above broader trends in corporate America. The ratios are calculated by comparing the pay of a company\u2019s CEO with that of a median employee. Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol found out that the devil is in these kinds of details when the coffee chain disclosed that he made 6,666 times more than the median staffer in 2024. Hollywood isn\u2019t quite dealing with those kinds of beasts. However, among Equilar 100 companies, the CEO pay ratio rose to 341:1 in 2025, up 13.7 percent from 300:1 in 2024. And as THR<\/em>\u2018s chart shows, the head honchos of the likes of Paramount, Cinemark, TKO, Disney, and Comcast exceed this median.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tThat said, pay ratios are difficult to compare, according to experts. After all, CEO pay is largely equity-based, while median employee pay is typically primarily cash-driven.\u00a0\u201cOne might expect the ratios of CEO to median pay in many cases to infuriate the rank-and-file, assuming they are aware of them, but not sure they are always informed about either the data or the potential rationale,\u201d says Lawrence Cunningham, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. \u201cHigh CEO pay is not automatically bad governance, but unusually high pay warrants a close look at the executive, the board, and the shareholder voting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cCEO pay ratios are all over the map,\u201d Gallagher consulting firm expert Crawford says. \u201cThere\u2019s not a great way to compare. Some companies have a lot of frontline workers, so their median employee to the CEO is going to have this much larger gap versus a tech firm or a biotech or an engineering firm that might have a lot more professional-level staff. And if a company is global and they\u2019ve got a lot of international employees, again, it might show a higher CEO pay\u201d ratio gap.<\/p>\n

\tThe employee-to-CEO pay ratio for Zaslav would have been even higher, 1,378-to-1, without adjustments for one-time stock option grants. But the Warners chief is likely to leave the role of the lightning rod for industry pay to someone else soon, though, given that 2025 could well be his final full year atop the entertainment industry powerhouse due to its deal to sell itself to Ellison\u2019s Paramount, which expects to close the deal this year.<\/p>\n

\t\tHollywood\u2019s Labor Chief Pay\t<\/h2>\n
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\tNearly all of Hollywood\u2019s top union leaders received a 10-plus percent raise in 2025, according to entertainment unions\u2019 filings with the Department of Labor. SAG-AFTRA head Duncan Crabtree-Ireland? A 10.27 percent raise. Directors Guild of America leader Russell Hollander? A 10.48 percent raise. IATSE international president Matthew Loeb? A 10.45 percent raise. <\/p>\n

\tThe only exceptions to the trend were the Writers Guild of America leaders, given that WGA East executive director Sam Wheeler is relatively new to his job and did not receive a salary from the union in 2024. And WGA West executive director Ellen Stutzman received a 12.53 percent raise, which may have had something to do with the fact that this pay period overlapped with her official ratification<\/a> by members as the WGA\u2019s top staffer on September 2024. (In 2023 the union\u2019s board of directors appointed <\/a>her to the role after previous leader David Young stepped down.)<\/p>\n

\tIn 2025 SAG-AFTRA\u2019s Crabtree-Ireland again won the distinction of being Hollywood\u2019s top-paid labor leader, with a salary of $1,120,502. He was followed by the DGA\u2019s Hollander ($883,873), then the WGA West\u2019s Stutzman ($768,257) and IATSE\u2019s Loeb ($611,326). Not bad for a year in which none of the unions undertook one of their major Minimum Basic Agreement labor negotiations with studios and streamers, even as labor leaders\u2019 pay of course still paled in comparison with that of Hollywood CEOs.<\/p>\n

\tBut the raises are notable in a year that saw many unionized Hollywood workers struggling and\/or out of work amid a pullback in the industry. Unions often argue that they can\u2019t force employers to create more work, they can only create good working conditions when jobs are available. That\u2019s true, but it\u2019s also true that they can play a role in incentivizing employers to work locally through terms in their contracts, and through policy advocacy. <\/p>\n

\tIn the latter regard, Hollywood unions were very active in 2025, helping to get an augmented $750 million California film and television tax credit over the finish line. Still, it appears that at a moment when times were tight for many members, unions still found room in their budgets to reward their leaders.<\/p>\n

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\tThese charts appeared in the May 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.\u00a0Click here to subscribe.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hollywood really is a larger-than-life version of corporate America, especially in the C-suite. Across all U.S. industries, median CEO pay hit $29.4 million in 2025, data firm Equilar finds. But for top entertainment execs, that\u2019s on the low end, per The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s annual look at the highest-paid media chiefs. Many of the moguls on our list made around $50 million. Or much more. Not only that, but the employee-to-CEO pay ratio is higher in entertainment. Across all industries, 341 employee salaries equal one CEO\u2019s take-home pay. That median is far exceeded at most of the major Hollywood companies tracked for this list (think 805-to-1 for former Disney chief Bob […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[94,578,95,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-business-features","category-business-news","category-hollywood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}