MUMBAI: Guess who the highest paid media executive in the US is?

According to The New York Times 2018 CEO compensation survey, the crown goes to Discovery president &  CEO David Zaslav who took home a package of $129 million (Rs 888 crore).  That was a steep hike over his 2017 payout was $42 million, and he has now catapulted to the No 2 position just behind Tesla’s Elon Musk who had a pay package of $2.28 billion ($5 million in 2017).

A major part of Zaslav’s compensation was in the form of stocks and options while salary and bonuses accounted for around 20 per cent of his total package.

While Discovery  had a top line of $11 billion, the median salary in the global media firm was $85,704.

Other media executives who feature in the NYT list include:

* Walt Disney’s Bob Iger (2018 compensation: $66 million; 2017: $36 million);

*  Twenty First Century Fox’s James Murdoch (2018: $44 million; 2017: $20 million);

* Netflix’s Reed Hastings (2018: $36 million; 2017: 24 million);

* Activision Blizzard’s Robert A Kotick (2018: 31 million; 2017: $29 million);   

* Comcast’s Brian Roberts (2018: $29 million; 2017: $27 million);

* Adobe’s Shantanu Narayan ($28 million vs $22 million);

* CBS’ Joseph R. Ianniello ($27 million);

* Omnicom Group’s John D Wren ($24 million vs $24 million);

* Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ($23 million vs $9 million);

* Verizon Communications Hans Vestberg ($22 million);

* AMC Networks Joshua W. Sapan ($21 million vs $30 million);

* Viacom’s Bob Bakish ($20 million);

* Liberty Media’s Gregory B. Maffei ($20 million vs $19 million);

* Interpublic group’s Michael I. Roth ($17 million vs $17 million);

* Apple’s Tim Cook ($16 million vs $13 million); 

* Nextar Media group’s  Perry A. Sook ($15 million vs $19 million)