Hollywood thinks of itself as the capital of creativity, but when it comes to an out-of-the-box approach to executive compensation, entrepreneurs and investors should look to Silicon Valley’s Steve Jobs.

His attitude: “Take this paycheck and shove it!”

On June 28, Walt Disney Co. announced a revision to its director policy to allow Jobs to work for free on the Disney board. This wasn’t a publicity stunt to garner goodwill. For years, Jobs has worked for $1 per year while serving as chief executive at Apple Computer Inc. Before he sold Pixar Animation Studios to Disney for $7.4 billion, he worked as chief executive at that company for a fat $1 per week.

What is the advantage of a one-figure salary? Freedom.

While at Apple and Pixar, Jobs held two chief executive positions at the same time unheard of among America’s big-money corporate chiefs. Jobs wasn’t slacking; the arrangement gave him the flexibility to pick and choose his meetings and public appearances for both companies.

That freedom extends beyond time management; it goes to the heart of creative independence. Whether it has been the Macintosh computer, the hit film “Toy Story” or the iPod music and film player, Jobs has shepherded some major creative breakthroughs to market. Compare that track record to other managers, and it is easy to question whether paying top executives another million dollars in salary or stock options brings even marginal gains in motivation or creativity.

For investors, the Jobs model leaves no doubt that his interests align totally with those of shareholders. Totally. Instead of worrying about his personal compensation package, Jobs can devote all his attention to creating value for consumers, business partners and the other owners of his companies.

And in the end, the money isn’t half bad. Thanks to the Pixar acquisition, Jobs owns 138 million shares of Disney stock, worth about $4.1 billion at current prices. He also owns about 10 million shares of Apple, worth $550 million. Based on last year’s returns on equity (9.7 and 18 percent, respectively), Jobs should increase his wealth about $496 million this year.

BET Kudos Click


The final tally shows the 2006 Black Entertainment Television Awards rank as the top-rated cable telecast of an awards show this season, better than the MTV Movie Awards, TV Land Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The L.A.-based BET Awards attracted 6.6 million viewers, or 4.1 million households. From an advertising perspective, the BET Awards achieved an impressive 31.9 rating among African-American households.

The telecast comes at a time of keen interest in African-American consumers. Last week, an Arbitron/Scarborough study found that blacks command more than $760 billion in annual spending power.

“This community has changed over time and so has their buying power,” said Julian Davis, Director of Urban Media Services at Arbitron. Among the demographic shifts the study found:

-The population of black college graduates has grown 14 percent in the past five years.

-Black households with incomes of $75,000 or more have grown 26 percent since 2000.

-More than 430,000 black adults plan to spend upwards of $35,000 on a new vehicle, an increase of 20 percent in the past five years.

-Black adults are 13 percent more likely than the average consumer to spend $150 or more on their monthly cellular phone bill.

-More than 1.8 million black adults plan to buy a home in the next year.

The study also found that “black-focused media is growing in the United States, with more and more radio stations, cable networks and others centering their programming on the black consumer.”

The most popular cable networks among black adult viewers are BET, TNT, The Weather Channel, ESPN and Discovery Channel. On radio, the most popular formats include urban adult contemporary (heard by 37 percent of black adults), urban contemporary (37 percent), rhythmic/contemporary hit radio (21 percent) and new AC/smooth jazz (12 percent).

The 2006 BET Awards show tied with the 2005 edition as the most-watched program in BET’s 26-year history. “For our viewers, this has easily become the most popular of all awards shows,” said BET Chief Executive Debra Lee. “It’s a fantastic way for BET to celebrate the greatness of African-Americans.

L.A. Chamber Honored


The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce has won two honors for its communication program. The chamber’s quarterly print newsletter titled “Voice” and the weekly e-mail version titled “L.A. Business This Week” received the highest distinctions of excellence from the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives.

On a 100-point scale, “Voice” scored 97 and the weekly e-mailer scored 93. “Congratulations go to Marie Condron, our marketing and communications director, who reinvented and redesigned both of these publications in the past year,” said L.A. Area Chamber President Gary Toebben.

Past issues of the chamber’s weekly newsletters, plus press releases and photo galleries of chamber events, are available at www.lachamber.org.

Projected Ad Spending


Northrop Grumman Corp. stands to become the top-spending advertiser with a Los Angeles address in 2007, according to projections in Schonfeld & Associates Inc.’s annual report “Advertising Ratios & Budgets.”

After Northrop, Univision Communications Inc., KB Home, International Lease Finance Corp. and Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. round out the top five L.A.-based advertisers.

Auto manufacturing looks like the top-spending industry globally for 2007 with projected expenditures of more than $30 billion, an increase of 5.3 percent. Eight of the largest car companies DaimlerChrysler, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo will spend more than $1 billion each on global marketing next year.

After automotive, diversified food companies are expected to spend $27 billion in 2007, up 5.5 percent. Advertising growth by telecommunication service companies will total $24 billion, up 6.6 percent. In addition, wireless services will spend another $12 billion for ads, an increase of 8.5 percent compared to this year’s estimates.

Overall, Schonfeld predicts an 8.6 percent increase in global advertising expenditures for 2007. The company with the largest global ad budget for the year will be Nestle, the report found. The Swiss company will spend $17 billion, an increase of 9.1 percent.

Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached

at (323) 549-5225, ext. 237, or at

[email protected]

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