
Content Creation is a Semi-Glamourous Business
Andy Marken August 1, 2024
0 Comments
They worship everything, and they value nothing. - Sebastian, LaLa Land, Lionsgate, 2016
One of the toughest jobs in the world is to be a boss/CEO of a company.
Worse? Being a CEO in the Americas.
Worse yet? Being a CEO of a tech/entertainment company in the Americas.
How did we arrive at this epiphany?
Logic! because you have to pay some idiot an exorbitant amount of money along with a huge backend payment to take the job.
According to the Booth School of Business, the average salary of a CEO at a Fortune 500 company is about $15M and entertainment CEOs get a lot more.
The job is so tough that when Sheri Redstone (family fortune so it sorta' doesn't count) and the board blew out Bob Bakish, she had to convince three guys to share the blame job - Chris McCarthy, George Cheeks and Brian Robbins. Then she could focus full attention - along with the board - to decide if they're going to keep the old girl together, sell her as a single diamond or cut her up into smaller gemstones.
Safe Landing - A for hire CEO always needs a well-crafted exit package or golden parachute because well, paying boss gigs are tough to come by.
In addition to having some small consolation knowing it took three folks to replace him, Basich was given time to clean out his desk and got his monthly stipend ($258K/mo.) until the end of October.
Oh yeah, he had a soft landing like most CEOs who get fired with a $48.5M ++ severance package.
Hollywood may be a tough business, but it pales in comparison to tech firms. Elon Musk is so broke he asked (demanded) that his $56B compensation package be reaffirmed. Wonder how much he gets paid every time he goes to the bathroom?
It's Tougher - While we have a world economy, it's obvious that being a boss in the US is tougher than anywhere else so you have to pay the guy (most of the time it's a guy) because, ah well because.
Sorry, got sidetracked, but being CEO for an American company really has to be tougher than anywhere else in the world.
After all, they have to get paid so much more than their counterparts in other parts of the world to be convinced to take the thankless job.
According to Bloomberg analysis, US CEOs average $14.3M annually more than double their counterparts north of the border and 10X more than those in India.
There are a lot of different reasons for the discrepancies - many of the world's largest companies are located here, there's a higher cost of living (you know about that, right?) and well stuff.
Of course, their jobs - making their numbers - were made even tougher by all of the strikers (actors, auto workers, etc.) who wanted a living wage, healthcare, holidays (EU folks get a month) and simply drug the strikes out, quibbling over little things.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median US worker made about $31.43/hr. last year but actors were paid $17.94/hr.
While the negotiating bosses still got paid, folks on the picket lines lived off savings (?), the kindness of others and union health plans.
Most actors aren't stars, most creators aren't Tarantino or Nolan; stunt folks have it a little tougher than Fall Guy's Gosling; production folks only get in front of the camera to clean the lens and most postproduction folks grind away hours on end in dark rooms staring at screens.
Sorry to crush the kids' dreams of heading to Hollywood, getting discovered serving coffee, becoming instantly famous, living in a Beverly Hills mansion and wallowing in money.
That s*** doesn't even happen in the movies!
But ever since the golden era of Hollywood, media industry executives have always been highly paid. And over the past bunch of years, these tormented executives have been through the grinder.
There was the MeToo period, the pandemic, those troublesome worker strikes and the total upheaval of the show/movie food chain. But through it all, top executives at Disney, Warner Bros and others got paid an average of $34.8M last year (more than double their counterparts in other US industries).
Salary Plus - Executives - or their agents - may have to negotiate how much they get paid but there's an entire industry built around executive compensation that helps them ensure they get theirs first.
True, stock awards make up most of their compensation packages and they're granted at the beginning of the year.
So, it probably doesn't count that all of those shelved video projects (regardless of how far along they are) that create tax savings and folks being layed off rather than adjusting their salary, are important management decisions.
After all, the pandemic was behind us and obviously, people were going to flock back to theaters even though they had been cutting back on high ticket prices and expensive popcorn for years.
Not Going - Certain segments of the entertainment industry don't like to admit that the cost (time/money) of a movie makes it less attractive for a lot of people to go to movie houses today especially since they have options.
In fact, according to most research, only eight percent of folks consider themselves frequent movie attendees while 59 percent say they rarely or never see movies in the theater.
And we hate to break the industry, but that just ain't gonna change!
The other change, which has been equally as slow and insidious, has been the petering out of the pay TV gold mine.
Folks have options lots of options.
Past Prime - Prime TV viewing is past its prime as the cost of the payTV bundle continued to grow along with the number of ads networks/services packed into each hour. Consumers have begun switching to economic and quality options.
Actually, FX CEO John Landgraf coined the term Peak TV a few years af
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
28/08/2026
KCBS takes the Chargers side, KCAL takes the Rams - with feeds out to 18 partner...
28/08/2026
(L-R) Topher Grace, Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Casper Kelly, and Keegan-Michael Key pose with the character Buddy at the Buddy Premiere during the 2026 S...
28/08/2026
The Italian orchestra, reimagined
IK Multimedia have announced the upcoming launch of Sinphonica, a new family of Italian orchestral instruments designed f...
28/08/2026
Voice-isolation plug-in boasts sub-10ms latency
Launched in 2025, CEDAR Audio's Icons range was created with the aim of bringing the company's renow...
28/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/08/2026
Global media technology company Backlight will showcase its latest innovations across Iconik and Wildmoka live video creation and distribution at IBC2026 (booth...
28/08/2026
Emergent, a developer of browser-based, AI-enhanced content production tools, will present its complete AI-enhanced content production platform at IBC2026, exhi...
28/08/2026
Joseph Bell Announces VFX & Animation World Atlas 2026
Joseph Bell August 28, 2026
0 Comments
Joseph Bell's Visual Effects & Animation World Atlas...
28/08/2026
Paris-Troyes en Champagne Goes Live on France.tv with AVEO
Brie Clayton August 28, 2026
0 Comments
Regional audiovisual company builds broadcastgrade ...
28/08/2026
DHD to Introduce its Third-Generation Audio Mixing Console at IBC 2026
Brie Clayton August 28, 2026
0 Comments
DHD.audio has chosen IBC 2026 as the la...
28/08/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Grass Valley are expanding their collaboration with the launch of Altitude Playout Plus, a software-defined channel origination plat...
28/08/2026
Yospace, the trusted leader in Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI), has announced the release of its Ad Presentation solution, which enables broadcasters to apply non-li...
28/08/2026
TSL Showcases Reduced Complexity for Control & Monitoring Across IP Workflows at IBC2026
New TSL Hummingbird capabilities including Dante control routing, toge...
28/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/08/2026
GlobalM and Lamhas Satellite Services today announced a new agreement that will see GlobalMs GMX technology deployed as part of Lamhas expanding managed IP broa...
28/08/2026
Integrated 25GbE Connectivity Delivers UHD Video Directly to Up to Two Monitors, Eliminates External Gateways, and Supports SMPTE ST 2022-7 Network-Path Protect...
28/08/2026
Interactive Ask Me Anything sessions will connect broadcasters and technology providers with the experts developing a practical, interoperable roadmap for sof...
28/08/2026
At IBC2026, TAG will show sub-2-frame latency and 800 Gbps of aggregate scale for uncompressed ST 2110 monitoring in software, live MXL interoperability with pa...
28/08/2026
SportsBox, BHV's Ultra-Compact 4K Remote Switcher, Moves from Development to Production at IBC 2026
SportsBox brings flexibility without compromise to high...
28/08/2026
Lutz Rathmann named CEO of Riedel Communications Anthony Zuyderhoff to lead unified customer-facing organization as CCO
Riedel Communications is strengthenin...
28/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research has established the Pete Schultz Fund for Innovati...
28/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Chemical structures called cyclopropanols are among the most useful...
28/08/2026
Friday 28 August 2026
Sky Secures Approval for Major Livingston Campus Investme...
27/08/2026
ESPN and Disney are launching College Football Saturdays, adding two college football games per week to Disney for U.S. subscribers as part of their existing ...
27/08/2026
Zixi will exhibit at IBC2026 (Hall 5, Stand 5.A76, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), demonstrating the Zixi Platform and the latest release of Zixi Broadcaster, ...
27/08/2026
NDI has announced that its ecosystem has surpassed 1.2 million NDI-enabled hardware nodes worldwide, spanning products from more than 200 hardware brands across...
27/08/2026
Clear-Com conducted a pre-launch field trial of FreeSpeak Cell during Carnival 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with Brazilian systems integrator Savana C...
27/08/2026
BHV returns to IBC 2026 with an important milestone for its own SportsBox: the broadcast industry's smallest remote vision mixer and format processor has mo...
27/08/2026
TOGETHXR and Snapchat have announced the second cohort of their Snap the Gap content creator program, welcoming nine athletes as Snap Stars. The program provide...
27/08/2026
MediaKind has announced that CNBC UK has selected Beam to modernize its contribution and distribution infrastructure for live broadcast operations. The deployme...
27/08/2026
Monitor engineer Chris Dwight has deployed Sennheiser's Spectera wideband bi...
27/08/2026
Telestream has announced an expansion of its UP cloud-native platform, adding capabilities for orchestrating Telestream services, third-party technologies, and ...
27/08/2026
Swerve TV has signed a multi-year partnership with GLORY Kickboxing, bringing live GLORY events and library programming to Swerve Combat, Swerve TV's free a...
27/08/2026
Dalet has announced a new integrated content experience with Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Dalet Flex, designed to bring AFP's editorial metadata into the p...
27/08/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate an integrated live production environment at IBC2026 (Booth 9.A01, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), combining K-Frame, Maverik X, ...
27/08/2026
The National Women's Soccer League and Roku have announced an expanded partnership, with the Roku Sports Channel becoming the exclusive streaming home of ei...
27/08/2026
FuboTV has announced the launch of ACC Network Extra (ACCNX) and SEC Network (SECN ) on the Fubo streaming service at no additional cost to subscribers with En...
27/08/2026
Sports marketers have entered the experiential age. Today, sports teams, leagues, and venues are increasingly using immersive interactions and real world events...
27/08/2026
MultiDyne will introduce the MDoG-8800 at IBC2026 (Stand 11.C12, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), extending its openGear portfolio with a high-density fiber tra...
27/08/2026
The Joint Task Force on the Dynamic Media Facility (JT-DMF), an initiative of AMWA and the EBU, will host a series of informal Ask Me Anything sessions during...
27/08/2026
Homestream, a mobile app that automatically syncs a team's local radio broad...
27/08/2026
A packager for TNT Sports, Kwokman Productions is on hand for the unique event w...
27/08/2026
After more than 3,000 games, five members of YES Network's original staff re...
27/08/2026
Physical modelling orchestral instrument announced
Following their recent cryptic hints, Dreamtonics have officially revealed the latest addition to their s...