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For perspective, Moonves‘ increase is far less than the 40% rise in CBS‘ stock in 2011. Still, the CEO’s $69.9M package makes him by far the highest paid media CEO for the year among companies that have already filed their annual proxy statements. Here’s how Moonves’ compensation adds up: $3.5M salary, $27.5M bonus, $8.5M in stock awards, nearly $27.3M in option awards, $1.5M change in pension value, and $1.6M in other compensation. That last category includes $500,000 to help build “a dedicated work area at his home for the purpose of screening and evaluating television and film programming and other work-related activities.” The company also paid $557,600 for transportation, including personal use of CBS’ jets. The proxy says that the board rewarded Moonves for, among other things, the big jump in CBS’ stock price, his dealmaking and “in leading the CBS Television Network in solidifying its #1 position in key ratings measures.” Chairman Sumner Redstone was the second highest paid exec, with $20.3M, flat with 2010. But there’s no doubt that the board considers Moonves the star of the show. He received 60% of the pay awarded to CBS’ top five execs. His compensation was six times greater than the average for his four colleagues. Corporate governance watchdogs consider it a danger sign when a CEO makes more than three times the average pay doled out to the others in the elite group. CBS will hold its annual meeting on May 24 in New York.
CBS’ Les Moonves Lands $69.9M In Compensation For 2011, Up 21%
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And exactly what did Less do to earn a staggering $69.9 M for 2011? Hey, if they are dumb enough to put in on paper ~~ you can’t blame Les for taking it.
And yet he led the producers group who fought the WGA which was asking for a total of about two million dollars over three years from all the studios COMBINED.
What an assh***.
What is Nina Tasslers compensation
Wendi trilling’s comp..the engines that drive CBS
Obscene and despicable. Come the revolution… !
Oh, puh-leaze. Solyndra was given $500,000,000. for NOTHING. And it was our tax dollars. CBS is doing great under Les without any government help.
Get off of your high horse and realize what is really happening. Moonves will pay taxes out of his salary, give some to charity (unlike our Vice President), buy a lot of stuff from small and big businesses, hire more staff and support the employment of many Americans. But I’m sure you believe the government should take a lot more from Moonves, send it to Washington and Sacramento so they can waste it on more Solyndras. Great plan, Glenn.
Oh my God how naive you are! Have you EVER worked in a major corporation? It DOESN’T trickle down. In fact, often the way CEOs make their enormous stock bonuses is by pandering to Wall Street through lay-offs.
It would be far better for the country if: 1.) People weren’t laid off, which causes a ripple effect where everyone else fears for their jobs and stops spending, 2.) CEO salaries would be cut to bring up the salaries at other tiers, giving more people discretionary income. Nobody says the guy/gal on top shouldn’t make a whole lot of money–the question is that it’s become a wildly disproportionate piece of the pie, which leaves everybody else with crumbs. Despite your trickle down optimism, there’s only so many businesses one wealthy family can patronize.
He delivers. This is not a business built upon income redistribution. He a terrific leader and executive. I have no problem with his compensation. Stop whinning and wondering. I am sure he takes good care of Nina Tassler. Oh yes, he is loyal to those who reciprocate.
So…he is paid nearly $70M, and CBS has to pay SEPARATELY to install an obviously majorly-boondoggled home theatre at his home? He couldn’t have paid for this himself and deducted it as work/home office expense? Sick.
In a world where an App is sold for one Billion Dollars, and in a world where CBS just got knocked off the top spot, and in a works where 60 percent of the viewing audience is DVR all of CBS scripted drama,s I think Moonves has done rather well.
i bet he is. loyal to the board of pansies/parasites that approve this RIDICULOUSLY OBSCENE sum. there should be a shareholder revolt. are you seriously telling me he wouldn’t work just as hard for 20M? it’s an EFFING JOKE. DO NOT forget this salary, guilds, when you sit down to negotiate your own pay and they try to plead tough times for the biz!!! clearly they are rolling in money.
it’s marie antoinette time when Les gets the salary of a 1%’er just to create a screening area at his house!
Whiners!
Can’t handle the American free enterprise system?
don’t like crony capitalism more like
Your comment is assinine. People are making valid, specific complaints about one man’s salary, vs. budget cuts made to departments under his. What is your vehement defense of obscene and unnecessary compensation based on, other than some ill defined “system” that seems to mean so much to you?
2011 saw some of the biggest budget cuts to scripted drama. They are now even asking for actors to take split payments for up and coming pilot drama’s. I was wondering where the money went. Be interesting to see how 2012 pans out. Uni Lever visited Cannes to ask the question, WTF are we going to do in 2013 about our add bucks. We are tired of paying the same rate as we did when 50 million people were tuned in. Now we pay the same rate for 12 million on an average CBS show. 60 percent of whom aren’t even watching live.
Next week might be the right time to sell CBS stocks. They are as good as they’re ever gonna get.
This is disgusting and disgraceful. How can you expect a man with such enormous brilliance and amazing talent to survive on less than 70 million a year? Pay the man what he’s worth for crying out loud. Les must be paid at least 100 million a year he’s worth his weight in gold and diamonds. Paying him such a small amount is insulting to him and offensive to all of us who enjoy watching such superb CBS programs. Give the man a raise or we will burn CBS to the ground!
I’m sure CBS News is fine with this….if they know what’s good for them.
Occupy CBS!!! Seriously, while CBS stock might be up 40% this past year, it is up 1% in the past 5 years!!! Is his compensation up 1% in that time, or is it the case that it’s heads he wins, tails the stockholders lose. Excuse me, but I feel sick.
That will be one hell of a man cave.
I aspired to be Julie Chen growing up…now I really want to be her!
wow. you have really high aspirations, don’t you? success is measured purely in dollars and cents? artists, scholars, people who discovered the earth isn’t flat? theory of evolution? jesus? all sorry losers.
Should never have kicked his ass in high school. But there are a lot of us saying that now.
What’s truly amazing is that he makes twice what Bob Iger makes and runs a portfolio of businesses about a quarter of the size. Hey, CBS is a big company with a net worth of 20b but the Walt Disney Company has a net worth of 75b. When Les gets up in the morning the first think he still thinks about is the network where he was paid around 10m before the Viacom split and he rose to CEO of CBS. There he has to think about a bunch of radio stations, billboards, CNET, Simon and Schuster, a few television stations, a syndication division, International sales of his tv product and a film studio that so far has been a disaster. When Iger gets up in the morning he has to think about the ABC + the O&O’s, a syndication division, ESPN, ABC Family, Disney Channel, radio stations, publishing,a live action movie studio, Pixar, the top producer of animated movies on top of the largest merchandising business operation in the world. Oh yea, he also has to think of the companies global theme park and hotel business as well as how all of these businesses are doing internationally. Based on this comparison Anne Sweeney should be making 75m a year and Bob Iger should be making 200m a year. Now all of these people are overpaid, but the truth is they have no life and won’t until their out of these jobs. Les has done a great job but 70m/year, really.
I wonder what Les does that makes him so special, Bob Iger of The Walt Disney Co. made 35 million including stock options and bonuses last year and he runs the largest entertainment company in the world, with 4 studios, TV, theme parks, cruise lines, and a bunch of cable networks, far larger than peanut sized CBS Inc.
So Moonves was responsible for CBS’s stock rising 40% in a year? Really? It had nothing to do with the overall improvement in the financial markets, equity markets, etc.? If so, he clearly is the most talented CEO to have ever helmed a company, and his leadership should be the topic of scholarship for generations to come. It does beg the question, though: What did he figure out this year that he didn’t figure out during the last ten years he occupied the position, because he has never come close to adding that sort value to the company’s stock price.
I’ll be dumping my CBS stock on Monday – clearly its board is out of control.
Additionally, it should be noted that CBS’s stock price has barely moved in the ten years since he took office, which is really the only relevant metric to measure his performance against if one is trying to justify this preposterous payout on the basis of stock performance. Of course, the other metrics one could be looking at (revenue, viewership, etc.) would probably paint a very similar picture.
This is shocking, and hopefully some sort of shareholder action will challenge it and the board members who comprised the compensation committee.
it’s called a “moonves”tment
CBS stock price was $35 in 2007. It then plunged to $3.37 a share in 2009 and is now back up to $34. Did they reduce his salary by 90% when he was responsible for investors losing 90% of their money? If not why not? Why aren’t CEO’s ever punished for failure?
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=CBS+Interactive#symbol=cbs;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
At least he did it the old fashioned way! Wall St did it screwing all of us and got away with it.
Curious.
Every time there’s an article about some CEO making millions of dollars for running a massive company, here come the people screaming that the CEO should have his salary cut or be fired or killed.
I would like you to read a few names:
Tyler Perry, Jerry Bruckheimer, Steven Spielberg, Elton John, Simon Cowell, James Patterson, Dr. Phil, Leonardo DiCaprio, Howard Stern, Tiger Woods, James Cameron, Johhny Depp & Christopher Nolan.
Each of those people make as much or MORE than Moonves and yet…crickets.
Can someone please explain this disconnect? Because I don’t get it.
I guess we know where the shareholder money goes…