Charter Communications CEO Thomas Rutledge’s 2017 salary was equal to the average pay of 148 Charter employees, according to a new regulatory filing.

The cable company’s proxy filing showed the CEO’s total compensation last year was $7.8 million. The average Charter employee is paid $52,722.

While the average cable company employee no longer qualifies for a pension, two of Charter’s top executives do, and Mr. Rutledge’s is currently worth $1,268,082.

Other top Charter executives all made in excess of $1 million in 2017:

• • President/COO John Bickham: $4.88 million
  • Senior Executive VP David Ellen: $3.14 million
  • Chief Financial Officer Christopher Winfrey: $2.07 million
  • Chief Accounting Officer and Controller Kevin Howard: $1.54 million

Each of Charter’s 12-member board of directors also received considerable compensation in 2017, ranging from $299,522-$506,628 in cash and stock awards.

Rutledge is rich.

Thomas Rutledge, CEO of a greatly enlarged Charter Communications, was awarded a greatly enlarged pay package worth $98.5 million in 2016 – a 500% pay rise.

Rutledge won a compensation boost, in part, because of his willingness to continue taking Charter’s money for at least five additional years, until 2021.

Charter disclosed the pay package as part of a regulatory filing. One year earlier, Rutledge’s salary was $16.4 million.

Bloomberg News reports the person likely responsible for the considerable pay boost was John Malone, Charter’s largest individual investor and board member. His associate and confidant — Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, sits on Charter’s compensation committee.

Rutledge’s stock options, valued at $78 million last year, will vest if Rutledge can adequately please Wall Street and shareholders by getting Charter’s stock price up. Various hurdles are in place that will give Rutledge more options as the share price moves higher.

Rutledge’s 2016 compensation also includes $2 million in salary and up to $10.1 million in stock awards, plus a $7.65 million bonus.

Charter customers got a $5 rate increase for broadband packages that will eventually reach all customers.

In 2016, Charter Communications closed on its acquisition of both Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus was paid $34.6 million in 2014, four times the amount he earned in 2013, thanks to generous stock awards.

Marcus’ pocket change base salary of $1.5 million represented a pay raise of 50% over the $1 million he took home in 2013, according to a statement filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Marcus’ real money came from stock awards worth $24.7 million, which represented more than 10 times the amount of his stock bonus the year before.

Time Warner Cable paid their top executives handsomely in 2014, in part to convince them to stay with the company as its merger with Comcast worked its way through the regulatory process. Marcus oddly won an extra incentive bonus in 2014 — $7.95 million if he agreed to stay with Time Warner long enough to collect an $80 million golden parachute severance package if the merger with Comcast was approved.

Unsurprisingly, Time Warner Cable praised itself for the effectiveness of its ‘Stay and Get Paid’ effort, showering top executives with cash bonuses to ‘tough it out’ through 2014.

“The company’s executive team remains in place and—as evidenced by the company’s 2014 operating and financial results—was intently focused on achieving the company’s short and long-term goals despite the uncertainty and challenges during the pendency of the transaction,” TWC said in its proxy.

Evidently that also means Time Warner was not in a position to find replacements willing to accept less than $34 million in compensation that would be capable of delivering similar results.

Cohen

Comcast’s top lobbyist and executive vice president is more than one million dollars richer after unloading 31,011 shares of Comcast stock.

David Cohen, a familiar face to those following Congressional hearings on the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, sold some of his shares last Thursday for an average price of $51.81 each, bringing him $1,606,679.91 in proceeds. Despite the sale, Cohen still owns 148,765 shares of Comcast worth $7.7 million.

Comcast opened this week at 52.03 on Monday. The stock had a 52-week low of $38.75 and a 52-week high of $55.28.

Cohen’s pay package for 2013:

• Salary: $1,365,140
• Restricted stock awards: $3,481,575
• All other compensation: $1,264,243
• Stock Option awards: $2,763,200
• Non-equity incentive plan compensation: $3,003,308
• Change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings: $2,079,985
• Total Compensation: $13,957,451

Mohamed

Exiting Rogers Communications CEO Nadir Mohamed won’t be hurting when he leaves one of Canada’s largest telecom companies next year.

Documents filed with securities regulators disclose Mohamed’s golden retirement package includes:

• $5.5 million in cash;
• $6.8 million in non-transferable stock that can be liquidated later;
• Another $6.2 million in stock options.

Mohamed has also signed a non-compete agreement to stay out of the telecom business for a year after he leaves Rogers.

Last year, Mohamed earned $8.21 million from a combination of his $1.2 million salary and various bonuses and stock awards.

Last spring, Mohamed presided over job cuts of 300 management and head office positions.

Rogers increased its rates in January to cover “increasing costs.”