The Hollywood Reporter – 28.02.2018

Behind the Headlines

The Report

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 36 FEBRUARY 28, 2018

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organizations who haven’t been

able to break into the top 10

in the primetime lineup lately,”

says Pierson with a Trumpian

flair for ratings jabs. Fox News’

Greg Gutfeld, a co-host of The

Five who suggested that teach-

ers should learn “hand-to-hand”

combat to help thwart school

shooters, criticized CNN for hold-

ing the town hall only hours after

the president’s listening session

with Florida survivors. And a day

after her town hall appearance,

NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch

targeted CNN’s focus on gun mas-

sacres, telling the CPAC crowd

that “many in legacy media love

mass shootings.”

Reflecting on the backlash

at the end of a long week, Tapper

tells THR he’s more concerned

about the families of the victims

of the shooting than he is about

those who claim to be outraged by

CNN’s programming decisions.

“However offended anybody was

at the passion in the town hall,

and however upset they were at

mean words that were said to

Sen. Rubio or Dana Loesch, they’ll

get over it,” he says. “And the peo-

ple in that stadium, they won’t.”

Marisa Guthrie contributed

to this report.

a partisan lens,” says Jake Tapper,
who moderated the town hall.
Tapper presided over the event
with a noticeably light touch and
accepts “legitimate” critiques,
but he rejects complaints that, he
says, emanate from the “cottage
industry of people who criticize
CNN no matter what we do.”
The irony, of course, is that
the “cottage industry” that
attacks CNN for partiality mostly
is made up of partisan players,
from Hannity to Carlson to sites
like Breitbart or The Daily
Caller. Boosted by the president,
those criticisms have gotten loud
enough that CNN embarked on
an ad campaign in October titled
“Facts First” to assert its journal-
istic impartiality.
Michael Steele, an MSNBC con-
tributor and former Republican
National Committee chairman,
says the CNN town hall was
“powerful” and “important” and
an example of the positive role
that TV can play in society. “The
opportunity for these forums to
take place is there,” says Steele,
“and in this climate,
at this time, it’s a
good chance for these
networks to open
their doors and bring
elected officials
in with the public and say hello.”
Perhaps not helping CNN’s
image, the town hall also sparked
renewed activism among liberals
pushing for gun control, especially
in Hollywood. Parks and Recreation
creator Michael Schur and show-
runner Shonda Rhimes joined the
chorus of anti-NRA sentiment
on Twitter, and NBC’s Blacklist star
Megan Boone declared that her
character no longer will carry
assault weapons.
That activism — and CNN’s per-
ceived role in it — now ends up
fueling the conservative media
position that these events are
simply sensationalism for rat-
ings. Katrina Pierson, who served
as a spokeswoman for Trump’s
campaign and regularly defends
him on TV, says CNN moved too
quickly and “politicized” the dis-
cussion. “You expect that from

Zucker

CNN’s

town hall

following

the Florida

school

shooting

boosted its

primetime

ratings but

prompted

conservative

backlash.

DURING

TOWN HALL

PRIMETIME

VIEWERSHIP

CNN

2.9M

Fox News

2.3M

MSNBC

2.3M

CNN

900K

Fox News

2.4M

MSNBC

1.8M

Night of Feb. 21

Week of Feb. 12

Even among the richest, there are notable divides as

the disparity between CEOs and employees widens

BY PAUL BOND AND NATALIE JARVEY

Evan Spiegel and Big Media’s

Bigger Pay Gap

I

n March 2017, Bernie Sanders and other lawmakers penned

a letter insisting that the SEC enact a long-awaited rule

requiring companies to disclose how much their CEOs earn rela-

tive to the staffers they employ.

With the Feb. 21 revelation that Snap CEO Evan Spiegel

earned $638 million in 2017, it appears Sanders may have

been onto something. While Spiegel’s eye-popping paycheck

can be considered an outlier — the result of a one-time stock

award granted for taking the company public in March — it has

reopened the debate over pay equity, perhaps especially in

media, where CEOs typically earn more than their counterparts

in every other industry, even when stock in their companies

underperforms. Witness: Philippe Dauman, who made $93 mil-

lion in 2016, the last year he was CEO of Viacom, while shares

of the company dropped 12 percent.

THR looks at how Spiegel’s payday stacks up against other

CEOs and, per data from tracking firm Equilar, just how big the

pay disparity is between corporate chiefs and their staffers.

Source: Equilar; *Dauman was not CEO at fiscal year end.

Source: Equilar CEO Pay Ratio Survey

Thomas Rutledge Charter Communications

Dara Khosrowshahi Expedia

David Zaslav Discovery Communications

Charif Souki Cheniere Energy

Michael Fries Liberty Global

Philippe Dauman Viacom

Mario Gabelli GAMCO Investors

Satya Nadella Microsoft

Larry Ellison Oracle

0 $50M $100M $150M $200M $700M

Evan Spiegel Snap

$156M

$142M

$114M

$98M

$95M

$93M

$89M

$84M

$78M

2017

2014

2013

2014

2016

2015

2016*

2014

2014

2013

$638M

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel’s one-time $638 million windfall in

2017 makes him the highest-paid public company chief in the

past five years. Also topping that media-heavy list:

Top 10 Paydays of Past 5 Years

How Big

Is the CEO

Pay Gap?

In the spring, public

companies will report

how much their chiefs

make compared with their

median staffer (known

as the CEO Pay Ratio).

All public companies 140:1

Technology hardware and equipment 125:1

Media (median) 350:1

Telecommunication services 92:1

Software and services 115:1

Source: Nielsen, total viewers