Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted to reject the 2024 compensation packages of its top executives, including CEO David Zaslav.Warner Bros. Discovery held its annual meeting Monday, and shareholders voted down a “Say on Pay” vote by a margin of 1,063,214,128 votes to 724,453,004 votes. Zaslav’s 2024 compensation package rose to $51.9 million.The vote is symbolic in nature, as the vote is nonbinding, however other companies in the media and entertainment space have adjusted their compensation plans in the wake of shareholder rejection of pay packages. Netflix, for example, made significant changes to its executive compensation after its shareholders rejected its executive compensation in 2023.AMC Theatres shareholders had also rejected CEO Adam Aron’s pay package that same year. The entertainment business is among the industry’s with the highest total executive compensation among sectors.At the 2024 annual meeting, shareholders had only just barely approved Warner Bros. Discovery’s executive pay packages, and this year Institutional Shareholder Services, an influential shareholder advisory firm, recommended that shareholders reject the pay packages, “in light of inadequate responsiveness and an unmitigated pay-for-performance misalignment.”In a statement following the vote, the Warner Bros. Discovery board said it “appreciates the views of all its shareholders and takes the results of the annual advisory vote on executive compensation seriously. The Compensation Committee of the Board looks forward to continuing its regular practice of engaging in constructive dialogue with our shareholders.”
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