Fox’s senior executive team, including co-chairman Rupert Murdoch and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, will forgo their salaries while other senior-level members will take 50% pay cuts as the company weathers the coronavirus.
Both Murdochs, as well as other executive officers COO John Nallen, chief legal and policy officer Viet Dinh and CFO Steve Tomsic, will not take a salary through September 30, while Lachlan Murdoch’s direct-report executive team, including Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, will reduce their salaries by 50% through the same period. From May 1st through July 31st, 2020, executives at the VP level and above will reduce their salaries by 15%.
“Collectively, these salary reductions will impact about 700 of our colleagues,” Lachlan Murdoch wrote in a memo. “And we are suspending compensation increases throughout the company, including for the Board of Directors.” The company has also extended its work from home policy through May 15th, which dovetails with the current end date for California’s “Safer at Home” order.
Fox becomes the latest media company to reduce salaries during the global health crisis that has wreaked economic havoc on the industry.
“I am heartened to know that many of our fellow Fox colleagues are already doing meaningful work to help others during this time,” Murdoch continued. “For example, we have retained and redeployed our Studio Lot food services staff, and these colleagues are now preparing 2,000 meals per day for those in need in the LA community. And some costume department staff have used their time and skills to make masks for fellow colleagues to help them work more safely.”