Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) rewarded its chief executive David Zaslav with a cash, stock and benefits package worth $49.7 million last year, according to a filing made with federal regulators on Friday.
The figure, disclosed in a proxy statement submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, reflected a 26 percent increase compared to Zaslav’s compensation package earned in 2022.
The bulk of Zaslav’s compensation package consisted of $23.1 million in stock awards, according to the proxy filing. His base salary was $3 million, and he received an additional cash bonus of $22 million after meeting certain free cash flow targets.
His compensation package also included more than $705,000 for personal security services and an additional $767,000 in expenses related to his personal use of a private jet owned by the company.
The increase in pay was particularly interesting given that WBD, as a whole, lost $3 billion last year. Like other media and entertainment companies, WBD has experienced challenges due to an ongoing softness in the traditional advertising market and lower revenue from its linear television business, which includes Animal Planet, CNN, the Discovery Channel, HBO and TNT.
That said, Zaslav and other executives improved on the company’s debt, bringing it down to $41.9 billion by the end of 2023. WBD’s debt load was $48.6 billion at the end of the prior year, according to financial data.
WBD also saw its direct-to-consumer streaming businesses turn a profit for the first time last year, with its Max and Discovery Plus streaming services bringing in $103 million in net income by the end of 2023.
WBD will report its first quarter (Q1) earnings for 2024 on Thursday, May 9.
