Dive Brief:
- Discovery Communications topped a list of companies with the largest pay difference between their chief executives and median workers, according to a new study by jobs and recruiting company Glassdoor.
- The ratio between CEO David M. Zaslav's pay and the median pay of Discovery workers is 1,951 to 1, according to the study. In 2014, Zaslav made $156 million, while median pay was $80,000. Discovery owns popular U.S. cable channels including Discovery Network, TLC and Animal Planet.
- Glassdoor called the study a "sneak preview" into the CEO pay ratio disclosure rule approved this month by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Los Angeles Times reports. The new rule requires the nation's 4,000 publicly traded companies to disclose the ratio of the CEO's annual total compensation to the median compensation of the company's employees.
Dive Insight:
Although Glassdoor is not the first to publish estimated CEO pay ratios, according to the Times, Glassdoor said it has collected "thousands" of salary reports over the years from employees to encourage pay transparency in the workplace, giving it a "unique window into worker pay."
It's unclear whether the various studies on CEO pay have influenced public or shareholder opinion, experts say. But the ratio alone may not say everything about the pay difference, Robert Jackson Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School, told the Times, adding that investors should also look at the compensation ratio in relation to other information, such as performance disclosures.
"Most Americans don't mind so much when CEOs make a lot of money if they perform," Jackson said. "What bothers them is if they get paid when they fail, and this ratio alone doesn't tell you anything about that."
