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NEW YORK (AP) — Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman's pay climbed 19 percent to $44.3 million last year while the TV-and-film company's stock slumped and its earnings remained flat.
The compensation package disclosed in a Friday regulatory filing included a $20 million bonus and stock awards valued at $19.9 million at the time they were granted. Those stock incentives ultimately could be worth more or less, depending on how Viacom Inc.'s stock fares in the next few years.
The rest of Dauman's pay for the fiscal year ending last September consisted of a nearly $3.9 million salary and various perks worth a total of $500,313.
The Associated Press calculates an executive's total compensation by counting salary, bonuses, perks, stock and options awarded during the year.
Dauman, 60, has been running Viacom's media empire since 2006 when he succeeded Sumner Redstone, now the New York company's executive chairman. Viacom owns MTV, Nickelodean and several other cable-TV channels, in addition to the Paramount movie studio.
Both cable-TV networks and film studios have been facing new competitive challenges as more video viewing shifts to the Internet and people find less expensive ways to entertain themselves.
Viacom earned $2.4 billion on revenue of $13.8 billion in fiscal 2014, unchanged from the previous year. Meanwhile, its Class B shares — Viacom's most widely traded stock — fell by 8 percent, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose by 17 percent during the same period.
Nevertheless, Viacom's compensation committee concluded that Dauman merited a significant raise from his fiscal 2013 pay of $37.2 million because he "executed on key operational goals," according to the company's filing. Among other things, the committee cited improvements in Viacom's creative teams, favorable deals with pay-TV operators and the progress made in streaming video on mobile devices.
This year, Dauman is being paid a $4 million salary with an annual target of $35 million in bonuses and stock awards under a contract that runs through 2018.
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