SLY BAILEY’S DECISION to step down from her position as chief executive of Trinity Mirror at the end of the year has taken the sting out of a showdown on executive pay that is scheduled for today’s annual meeting of shareholders.
In total, Bailey was paid £14 million for what the Press Gazette described as “10 years of managed decline” at the media group – it was the promise of a final £1.7 million payment that proved too much for shareholders.
But while the Trinity Mirror case proves the media sector is not immune from the wave of shareholder protests sweeping the usually easygoing upper echelons of the FTSE, the only way is down for executive salaries in other corners of the sector, too.
The BBC’s next director general will reportedly be paid a lower sum than the £671,000 received by Mark Thompson, while Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, took a 10 per cent reduction in salary in February to £395,010.
Both organisations have cut jobs in recent years, with the BBC’s programme part of a cost-slashing scheme euphemistically titled “Delivering Quality First”.
At RTÉ, the focus to date has been on “star” salaries.
However, senior executive remuneration may yet come into sharper focus given that the broadcaster’s expected deficit for this year has mushroomed from the €20 million stated by director general Noel Curran in March to last week’s €50 million estimate by Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte.
The broadcaster’s voluntary redundancy programme accounts for most of the sum, but it seems likely, if not inevitable, that Curran’s warning to staff that further cuts may be required will come to pass.
