Disney leads media, telecom CEO pay ratio ranks as gap increases in 2024

The median CEO-to-employee pay ratio for the biggest US media and telecommunication companies by market capitalization jumped to 199x in 2024 from 176x the year before, according to an analysis of the most recent data by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The median employee compensation for the media and telecom sector fell 13.1% to $122,611 in 2024 from $141,128 in 2023.

Disney CEO makes 746x company employees

Walt Disney Co. reported the highest CEO-to-median employee pay ratio among the top 20 US media and telecom companies that disclosed such information for 2024, at 746x, up from 595x the year prior.

According to Disney's proxy filing, the total annual compensation for the company's median employee was $55,111, slightly up from $54,010 in 2023. By comparison, CEO Bob Iger's fiscal 2024 pay package soared 30% year over year to $41.1 million from $31.5 million in 2023, ranking him as the eighth highest-paid CEO in the media and telecom sector in 2024.

Iger, who was paid a base salary of $1 million, also received $7.2 million in bonuses, $18.3 million in stock, $12.0 million in options, and $2.1 million in other compensation in fiscal 2024.

Iger was rewarded for, among others, Disney's box office performance, which included billion-dollar grossers "Inside Out 2" and "Deadpool & Wolverine." Disney said in the filing its compensation decisions are "overwhelmingly tied" to company performance.

Omnicom Group Inc. ranked second with a CEO-to-median employee pay ratio of 494-to-1, with CEO John Wren pulling in $21.7 million in 2024 compensation. By comparison, Omnicom's median compensated employee earned $43,832, the lowest median employee salary within the scope of the analysis.

Wren's pay package included $13.5 million in option awards as part of an annual incentive tied to Omnicom's performance targets, along with $1 million as base salary, $7.0 million in stock awards, and $173,535 classified as "all other compensation," including personal benefits. He was supposed to receive $57,000 more under the incentive, but he recommended reallocating it to the general incentive compensation pool for the other Omnicom employees.

T-Mobile US Inc. rounded out the top three with a reported CEO-to-employee pay ratio of 406x, with CEO Mike Sievert earning roughly $30.0 million in total compensation, compared to $74,097 for the median employee of the wireless carrier.

Sievert, who reportedly plans to step down before his contract's expiration in 2028, received a base salary of $1.8 million, $20.4 million in stock awards and $7.7 million in nonequity incentive compensation.

– Find out which S&P 500 company reported the highest CEO-to-median employee pay ratio for 2024. – Visit S&P Capital IQ Pro to check Disney's historical compensation data. – Read our analysis of the 2024 media and telecom CEO pay rankings.

For the third consecutive year, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. achieved the lowest CEO-to-median employee pay ratio as CEO Strauss Zelnick earned $106,457 in total compensation against the median global employee's compensation of $73,005, resulting in a pay ratio of 1.5-to-1.

Take-Two's pay ratio would have surged to 458-to-1 if the computation considered Zelnick's compensation from the video game developer's management company, ZMC, bringing the total to $33.4 million.

In terms of median employee pay, Roblox Corp. led the 2024 rankings among the biggest media and telecom companies at $420,936, representing an increase from $325,675 in 2023.

By comparison, founder, President and CEO David Baszucki earned almost $3.0 million in total pay. He would have earned an additional $25.0 million worth of equity grants but these did not result in any incremental fair value as they were considered a modification of his original founder long-term performance award, the video game developer said in its proxy.

Meta Platforms Inc. dropped to second place with a median employee pay of $417,400, compared to $379,050 when it topped the 2023 rankings. The Facebook parent also had the biggest median employee compensation in 2022.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been receiving a salary of only $1 since 2022, earned $27.2 million in total compensation in 2024, including $10.4 million for costs related to personal security.