Per Deadline, the new employment agreements (for Zaslav and WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, set to become the CEO of the spin-off Global Networks unit) were initiated by the board’s compensation committee. The new package will “significantly reduce his target annual compensation, including lowering his annual cash compensation opportunity and reorienting the total pay mix toward long-term incentives,” the filing said, adding that the change will “foster a stronger alignment with stockholders and incentivize sustained, long-term value creation.”
As head of the Studios & Streaming unit, Zaslav will have a new contract through December 2030, which includes a base pay salary of $3 million a year, the same as it was in 2024. His annual cash bonus opportunity will be reduced from a target of $22 million to just $6 million, with the “actual payout based on the achievement of performance goals,” according to Variety. In terms of annual equity bonus target value, he’ll come down from $23.5 million to $15.5 million the first year that he receives an equity grant from the company and reduced further to $7.5 million per year every year after. Also on the table are tens of millions of stock options, some of which are performance-based and some of which are time-based. Then there are things like a “car allowance of $1,400 per month” and “125 hours of personal use per year” on company aircraft or other private planes.
So, Zaslav is still being extremely well compensated for his troubles. But with the split—which is meant to address the company’s major debt problem—the WBD board had to figure out payment for two CEOs now. In a statement, Warner Bros. Discovery chair Samuel A. Di Piazza Jr. said, “As we plan for the proposed separation of Warner Bros. Discovery, the Board prioritized retaining and incentivizing the continued contributions of David Zaslav and Gunnar Wiedenfels. We structured the new compensation packages to address shareholders’ feedback by fostering pay-for-performance alignment, ensuring industry-standard pay structures, and incentivizing contributions to position the two new leading media companies for success and shareholder value creation.”
