Charter Communications Inc. CEO Christopher Winfrey's total compensation in 2023 stood at 1,635x the company's median employee pay, topping the rankings among the biggest US media and telecom companies.

The cable operator had 101,700 full-time and part-time employees as of 2022-end. To comply with SEC regulations, the company computed its CEO-to-employee pay ratio in 2023, based on a new median employee whose role or compensation had no material change since the last review in 2020.

While Charter's median employee earned $54,476 in 2023, Winfrey's compensation jumped to $89.1 million from $15.6 million in the prior year, thanks largely to stock and option awards, according to an analysis of the most recent data by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Charter issued equity awards under its 2023 performance equity program, based on the company's network expansion and evolution projects. Winfrey received $85.0 million in equity awards, five times his eligible grant of $17.0 million under Charter's annual long-term incentive plan. Stock options comprised 90% of the equity awards, while the remaining 10% were restricted stock units.

Furthermore, Winfrey's salary increased to $1.7 million in 2023 from $1.4 million in 2022. He also received a performance-based incentive of $3.5 million.

If Charter annualized the value of Winfrey's equity awards under the performance equity program over its five-year vesting period, the company's CEO-to-median employee pay ratio would be 656-to-1.

The median pay ratio for the top 20 US media and telecom companies by market capitalization in 2023 was 176-to-1.

– Find out which IT company topped the S&P 500 CEO compensation rankings for 2023. – Read the S&P Global Market Intelligence Executive Compensation Review for US banks and thrifts as per GICS classification.

Live Nation Entertainment Inc., which led the sector's CEO-to-median employee pay ratio rankings in 2022, ranked second in 2023, according to Market Intelligence data.

Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino's total compensation fell to $23.4 million in 2023, compared to $139.0 million in 2022, which included $116.7 million in stock awards. The company's median employee, by comparison, earned $28,207, resulting in a ratio of 831-to-1.

A large portion of Live Nation's employees work part-time, seasonally or temporarily at its venues and festivals or in the company's call centers, which have "relatively low total compensation" due to their limited work hours, according to the company.

Considering only its full-time salaried employees, Live Nation's CEO-to-median employee pay ratio would be 282-to-1.

Video game developer Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., which registered the lowest CEO-to-median employee pay ratio among the largest media and telecom companies in 2022, remained at the bottom of the rankings in 2023. Company CEO Strauss Zelnick earned $274,704 in total compensation against the median global employee's compensation of $75,276, resulting in a pay ratio of 2-to-1.

Zelnick, who is being paid through Take-Two's management company ZMC, would have received up to $26.2 million in compensation in 2023 if the ZMC payments were included. Take-Two's pay ratio would have gone up accordingly to 380-to-1, according to its proxy.

On median employee salary, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. led the rankings for the second consecutive year at $379,050, up from $296,320 in 2022.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who continued to receive a salary of only $1, had an aggregate compensation of $24.4 million, including $9.4 million to cover his and his family's security.

Snap Inc., the parent entity of social media platform Snapchat, had the second-biggest median employee salary at $346,462.

By comparison, Snap CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel earned $3.3 million in 2023, including $2.5 million on personal security. Spiegel, however, had a salary similar to Zuckerberg at $1.