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BREAKING NEWS… CBS Corp paid its chief Les Moonves a compensation package worth $57.7 million in 2010, a 34% raise over 2009, the company reported Friday. That made him Big Media’s second-highest-paid CEO — trailing only Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, who was the country’s highest-paid chief executive with $84.5 million. Moonves’ total included a $20 million bonus as well as a $7.5 million cash payment. The payment was “for his leadership in connection with the creation of premium content across the Company’s portfolio of businesses, particularly with respect to the CBS Television Network, which outperformed its media peers in 2010,” the company said in its annual proxy statement. Of course even a chimp could have improved CBS’ financial performance last year. Virtually every major media company benefited as the economy began to recover from the depths of the recession in 2009. Broadcasters also picked up a lot of ad sales from candidates running in 2010′s hotly contested local political campaigns. CBS’ stock appreciated 37.5% during the calendar year.
Moonves Scores $57.7M CBS 2010 Payday
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For what? CBS is no 1 in primetime, but anyone could do that…spinoffs and procedurals. CBS Films hasn’t produced a single hit. CBS News lags in third place morning and evening. Jay Leno has passed Jay Leno again.
I mean Jay Leno has passed David Letterman again.
Did you read the post? His company is up 37.5% in the markets. Please read before you post.
So, what? Does that mean he needs to get the lion’s share of compensation? Why don’t they spread that out among 10,000 of CBS’s employees? I’m sure they all had a role in the success of the company. And, no, this isn’t like our welfare system. In our welfare system, we give money to people who (mostly) don’t want to work. I’m not a Liberal at all. But, excessive CEO pay offends me.
He cancelled Two and Half Men and his film division sucks. He must be thrilled he has made more money then any of his features have. What a tool.
Yep, the numbers tell the story. He obviously earned those BUCK$$.
In 2009, CBS’ profits dropped 98%, and he still paid himself $43M. Yes, he deserves “IT”. God will figure out what “IT” is.
If only. Unfortunately there will be no divine justice for greedy execs like this.
Those numbers weren’t there when I posted that comment, and it doesn’t follow that he should get a raise equal to the amount of profit that increased.
CBS profits were up 32% so that sounds about right.
Wow really. And all the unions fight for health care and bumps. Congrats les
Good for him.
Good thing CBS cancelled those underperforming soaps and laid off all those people so that they can afford to pay Moonves his well-earned $57 million!
Ask Les how well his film company is doing !
Winning!
Wait, what?
lmao
Hahahaha good one.
Good…then you’re not desperate enough to rehire the winner who thinks all women are doormats or goddesses.
I am so underpaid.
Has CBS come out with one hit show this past season to warrant this outrageous payday? Anyway, I wonder when his messiah Obama is going to start taxing him as much as he plans to tax the little people? You know, those who actually work for a living.
I am always amazed by the pretzel logic it takes for right-wing racist Republicans to work an Obama jab into any conversation regardless of subject.
HaHaHa Ha. Good one. You had me there for a second.
This last season has been a big disappointment for CBS. Most of their shows did badly and the rest bombed. And what they keep calling a big hit , the expensive Hawaii five-0, has lost so many viewers that now only gets around 10 million viewers. Well, they still have CSI
And CBS movies 
So I see why my sat bill keeps rising and Viacom is trying to get more $$ for iPad streaming. It’s to pay yet another ridiculously high compensation for another Hollywood exec.
Sickening… I wonder how many lay-offs there were at CBS this year to pay for that.
Well, I was one … and there were many others. Les Moonves, Jeff Bewkes, et al are a bunch of overpaid scum.
JHC. Get your wife a show, get two classic shows worth of employees fired to do so, keep her show on when it lands with a thud, keep cloning your old-skewing, ageing primetime series with spinoffs set in different cities, and take no creative risks. Paydirt! (If chenbot wanted on tv so bad, couldn’t he have just put her on B&B…the Bold & the Botoxed?)
In 1970, the average CEO salary to worker salary in the USA, Germany, and Japan was about 14 to 1. Today, in the latter two countries, the percentage remains about the same. In the USA, it’s 512 to 1.
During this same time period, many of these CEO’s have blamed “big government” and “too much taxes” for getting in the way. Many of these CEO’s have been beneficiaries of Federal funds, creating a system of ‘capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich.’
Moonves’ salary is close to the entire residual amounts earned by all writers or all actors during an entire year. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and it keeps rolling on.
@Robert: amen brother. Nothing personal against Les Moonves, but really–57 MILLION??? Ok, so his company has done well, or whatever, but how is it that they can cry poverty and lay people off on the one hand, then hand over this type of money?? For one freakin’ year??
Seriously, it seems like every day I read another rich getting richer article that sickens me to my core; Matt Tabbibi has a doozy in upcoming RS about a shell co belonging to two wives of Wall Street/Banker ceos that siphoned off hundreds of millions in fed funds. Then there’s the Vanity Fair piece by Joseph Stiglitz about the richest 1%.. And unlike GE, CItibank etc, I had to send off my tax payment today. Really my blood is boiling.
I make these arguments to my father regularly. The same is true in professional sports. Mickey Mantle made 8 times the common man’s salary in the 1950′s, A-Rod currently makes 833 times (+/-) the common man’s salary! What the new superclass can’t fathom is that if so much continues to flow to so few, eventually the masses will revolt. Another sign of how troubled our country really is.
People aren’t really upset at how much he makes. People are upset at how much more he makes than us. The bigger the gap, the more people are upset. This is true around the world, and a key distinction to be made when factoring in any indicators of poverty and correlating them to crime.
Yes, it a little hard to stomach knowing that payday will never come for most people including myself, HOWEVER, he has earned every penny. This is compensation based on profits that he has overseen generated for the company, keeping employed a workforce in the thousands.
The man started out as an actor and look where he has ended up, by working hard and playing the game right, bottom line making money for people.
And somebody somewhere is happy to write him that check because their slice of the profits he directly help to generate is already in the bank.
The man is a pro and obviously doing the job very well!
Agree. Good for Les. Clearly the man knows what he’s doing and quite possibly is deserving of every penny. Perhaps if he shaved off even more from production costs, cut just a few more hundred jobs, he could add another million to that number. Just not my job.
Hey CBS! A fool and his money are soon parted.
How much is enough? I love it when we negotiate clients deals on successful shows and they never have any more money, or they won’t meet client’s quotes on pilots. And they layed off a pregnant executive because of cutbacks. People like this should be ashamed.
That’s 1.1 million a week. My mom once wrote him a nice letter about a show she liked. Never heard back. Not even a form letter. Guess he’s just too busy.
Come on, dawg. You’d be lucky to get a letter back from Christina Norman.
Shaun? Is that you?
CBS continues to succeed because they have no aspirations to quality. They throw lowest-common-denominator crap out to the dullest minds in America and make a bundle doing it. They are the network equivalent of McDonald’s. This would make Les a very well paid Ronald McDonald.
Why do they pay him so much? Would he not work for $30 million or even $20 million. I just don’t see how it is financially responsible to pay a hired gun $60 mil. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
$7.5 Million cash is what it says above. The rest is probably stock, etc., that would go up and down in value. He’d only get that money if he sold the stock or used it to get loans. All the financial mumbo jumbo can be so misleading if it’s not explained. Until it is, the only thing we know in terms of hard cash is $7.5 Million… the rest to me is like the gift certificates to a restaurant I once received for a “bonus.” I never used them and the restaurant is long gone.
I think about half the money was tied to stock performance, options and whatnot. In February of 2009 the stock was $2.50 today its almost $25.00. That’s pretty impressive. Who knows what he’s doing right, but he’s doing something right in Wall Streets eyes.
To be exact. the low price in February 2009 was $4.25. Let’s remember, the reason the shares were that low was primarily due to Redstone selling over $200,000,000. worth of CBS shares due to a margin call. These were shares he swore never to sell.
And, don’t omit the income from Julie (Mrs. Moonves) Chen for all her brilliant work hosting The Talk and other CBS stuff.
Les, you are the best at putting serious dollars in your own (family) pocket…and, I am sure all those reading this would take the money, too!
Why not? CBS films has done a great job, hit after hit! Plan B, that Harrison Ford Brendan Fraser masterpiece, the one with the naked girl from high school musical almost made 10 million! the guy is pure genius, and by genius i mean he’s just like everyone else, but dumber
Is this Stan from the Eminem song “Stan”?
As a CBS shareholder I’m reeally not surprised . Sumner Redstone is a real sport with other shareholders money. CBS opened on January 3, 2006 at $25.60. That was the first day of trading after the split from Viacom. CBS closed at $19.05 on December 31,2010. That’s 25.6 below opening day and the dividend was significantly higher than what we received in 2010. Since only Redstone’s votes count, he owns 79.8% of the voting shares he is able to screw all the shareholders. Moonves should really be upset. The COO of Viacom, Tom Dooley received $64,651,720.00 for 2010 a fact not mentioned in the story. The bottom line is Redstone’s companies, CBS and Viacom are private companies trading on a public exchange.
That’s great news for Julie Chen.