Rupert Murdoch will have to admonish himself after it was revealed that his performance-related bonus dropped 20 per cent year-on-year.

It means News Corporation’s head honcho saw his annual take-home pay drop by six per cent overall to $16.8m, or £10.9m.

It’s the Australian tycoon’s lowest salary since 2003 as his media empire tackled a global decline in advertising revenues. His basic pay remained $8.1m but he only rewarded himself $4.4m in bonuses. He also got stock and share options worth $4.05m. His son, James Murdoch, who heads News Corp’s European and Asian operations, saw his earnings slide 13 per cent to $8.84m.

The biggest pay packet went to chief operating officer Chase Cherry, who received $23.1m, including a $10m bonus on his recruitment from rival DirecTV.

Rupert Murdoch also paid his wife, Wendi, $92,000 for providing strategic advice in China to the wavering MySpace website.

Despite the pay cuts, News Corp actually made profits of $2.5bn for the year to June, boosted by the record-breaking performance of James Cameron’s Avatar, released by Twentieth Century Fox.

This article appears in issue 250 of Media Digest.

(Source: MediaGuardian)