Warner Bros. Discovery lost money last year. Its CEO got a $50 million payday.
Warner Bros. Discovery shares have slumped since the media and entertainment company was created two years ago, but that hasn’t dented its chief executive’s pay. Last year, CEO David Zaslav received pay valued at $49.7 million, a 27% increase from 2022, the company said in a securities filing Friday.
That is more than three times as much as the $15.6 million median pay of S&P 500 CEOs whose compensation had been disclosed through late March. The company, home of the Warner Bros. movie studio, the Max streaming service and cable channels including HBO, CNN, TNT and Food Network, posted a smaller net loss—but also narrower revenue—last year.
But Zaslav’s stock award was tied to another metric: free cash flow, which nearly doubled to $6.16 billion last year as the company moved aggressively to pay down debt. Zaslav has been cutting costs ever since he took the helm of the company, the result of a merger between Discovery and AT&T’s WarnerMedia. That effort continued in 2023 through staff reductions and tighter budgets on content spending and marketing.
The company also wrote off projects, such as the movie “Coyote vs Acme." Overall, Zaslav’s compensation included a $3 million salary, $23 million in stock awards tied to cash flow and a guaranteed $22 million cash bonus. He also got perks, including personal security at his various residences valued at more than $700,000, and $768,000 for use of the corporate jet. Free cash flow reflects funds available to a company after operating expenses and capital investment, and is one measure investors use to gauge a company’ health.
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