The chief executive officers of NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast saw their compensation packages rise in 2021, according to SEC filings released on Friday.
Brian Roberts, who heads up cable giant Comcast, saw his compensation package increase to nearly $34 million over 2020’s $32.7. The increase, however, still fails to match his 2019 package, which was over $36 million.
Meanwhile, the filing Friday also revealed that Jeffrey Shell, the CEO of NBCUniversal, also got a raise, jumping from $16.5 million in 2020 compensation totals, to $21.5 million for 2021.
Shell’s pay bump represented a 30% increase of his previous year’s total.
Shell and Roberts both donated 100% of their respective salaries to COVID-19 relief charities from April to September 2020. So over the course of six months, $1.25 million of Shell’s 2020 salary was donated and $1.7 million of Roberts’.
“We hope in some small way we can make this time easier on our employees, our local communities and our customers,” Roberts said in an email sent to staff that April when the announcement was made, which came shortly after Shell had tested positive for COVID-19.
At that time, Comcast also committed $500 million to continue paying and providing benefits for its employees where operations had been impacted by COVID-19 shutdowns.
A month after the Comcast and NBCU revealed their salary donation plans last year, Shell’s NBCUniversal joined the ranks of media companies that instituted pay cuts for its highest-salaried employees amid the pandemic, implementing a 20% pay cut for top management. The company also rolled back raises for those making more than $100,000.