The Coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the global economy, with hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs, and the raft of protests across the world over the summer sought to draw more attention to the massive social and societal discrepancies that everybody knows about, but those in a position of power are reticent to change.
There are tough times ahead, but one of the few sectors to benefit from folks being at home so much more than usual over the last nine or ten months is the various streaming services on offer. Netflix‘s subscriber count has increased ahead of projections, Disney Plus has racked up 86 million paying customers in just over a year, and HBO Max’s viewership is set to steadily rise throughout 2021 as Warner Bros. send all of their major releases directly to the platform on the same day they hit theaters.
Netflix may have canceled a much higher number of shows than usual, due in part to the higher budgetary costs required to mount large scale productions with the necessary health and safety protocols in place, but co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos will be laughing all the way to the bank after it was revealed that the pair will earn a massive $34 million each next year.
Chairman Hastings takes a base salary of $650,000 with the rest made up in stock options, while Chief Content Officer Sarandos nets a flat rate of $20 million plus $14 million in options. That’s actually slightly less than the duo pulled in this year, with their 2020 earnings said to be $36.5 million apiece, but with those kinds of numbers, it isn’t like the Netflix head honchos will be losing any sleep over the pay cut.
