“Pay TV?” Austar boss in 43% raise
John Porter's paypacket reportedly swelled to $5.2million last year.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Subscription
After recent stories on executive pay packets, this one won’t go down well…
Austar boss John Porter received a 43 per cent raise in his total remuneration for the year to December 2008, notes The Australian.
Porter’s paypacket swelled to $5.2million as a result of his share-based pay nearly doubling.
Austar’s annual report says the huge rise in Mr Porter’s pay came in the context of halcyon days for the pay packets of many senior figures at the regional pay-TV operator during last year, despite the global economic downturn.
Across-the-board pay rises for senior management and board members have come because of a long-term incentive plan.
The Austar board received a 41 per cent rise in its total remuneration. The group’s five highest-paid executives received a 48 per cent rise in their total pay packets to a whopping $10.4 million.
Source: The Australian
10 Responses
I live in a regional area and I ditched crappy Austar. I watch TV over the internet now and it’s actually cheaper than satellite.
I don’t understand why these ‘regional’ companies like Austar, WIN and Prime even exist. They add zero value to anyone but themselves, and deliver an awful service to regional folk (Austar’s MyStar in particular). There is no technological reason as to why regional folk have to put up with this rubbish. Regional viewers have the right to exactly the same services metro viewers get.
It is a bit much given recent economic events.
BTW I will never get MyStar as long as you can’t hook up a DVR to record shows to DVD, I’ll save the $15 and stick with my standard digital box and maybe upgrade when/if Austar ever gets HD…
Mr Porter wouldn’t be getting a rise if regional viewers were allowed to chose Foxtel. He’d be out of a job with 0 subscrubers. Austar are second rate and so far behind Foxtel it’s not funny.
John can i have my $14.95 back that I paid for Mystar as its a lemon?
This is disturbing, my austar bill is over $80 a moth and its rubbish for that price now I know where he money is going.
And we won’t even mention the lack of HD on Austar.
Parasite
i think that says it all
Wondered why the big push in Austar commercials on WIN/Prime/SC10, also the girls with sales booths in the local (Illawarra area) shopping centres last week. Pathetic. All Austar does is relay parts of Foxtel. They do nothing original. Pathetic, especially when their subscriber numbers (from the other Austar story) -“In the three months to March 31 (subscriber numbers) increased by 1970 to 722,240. In the economic downturn it is a slim figure compared to the corresponding quarter in 2008 of 9416 new subscribers”. Porter blames the Victoria fires and Qld floods for the lower figures. Well, gotta blame something other than his mismanagement. 43% increase in pay packet. That represents something like fees from 14,500 subscribers straight into Porter’s pocket.
So that’s why cable tv is so damn expensive! We are paying the senior management and not for rights to play tv shows from overseas etc.. They just repeat the old ones they have and try to trick people when they move shows over to new channels with the same old content.
Brilliant..