Comcast

Annual Meeting: June 3, 2020

Brian L. Roberts, the Chairman and CEO of Comcast, received $36,370,183 in compensation in 2019. The figure represents a 3.8% increase from his 2018 pay. Comcast has made As You Sow’s list of the 100 most overpaid CEOs for the past six years. The company ranked 21st this year.

Deadline notes that Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) proxy advisory firm, took issue with NBCUniversal (NBCU) CEO Steve Burke’s 2019 $43 million package, especially because it was over that of Roberts’ package. ISS said, “In terms of overall compensation, having an NEO compensated at or above its CEO can be costly to shareholders.” It is not the first time Burke, who is slated to leave NBCU in August, has out-earned Roberts. An article by Business Journal reports Burke earned “$40 million in 2018, when Roberts earned $35 million. In 2017, Burke’s compensation hit a high of $46.5 million, well above Roberts’ $32.5 million. Much of the difference in Burke’s compensation has been his higher change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings, which was $14.8 million in 2019, nearly double Roberts’ $7.6 million.” All eyes will be on Burke’s successor Jeff Shell’s salary to see if this pattern will continue.

ISS also noted its disapproval of a non-employee Comcast director receiving over $670 thousand in 2019 compensation, considering it to be “an outlier based on sector data.”

Comcast workers make a median pay of $78,869 per employee; the pay ratio of CEO to employee is 461:1.