Follow the Money
Who pays for the voices that shape public opinion? Every figure below is from public reporting — court filings, trade press, and SEC disclosures. The numbers tell you who has a vested interest in what gets said on air.
Spending by Parent Company
How much each media conglomerate pays its tracked on-air talent annually.
Compensation by Ownership Type
Corporate-owned outlets spend orders of magnitude more on talent than nonprofit or publicly funded media. That gap shapes who gets heard.
Compensation Rankings
Every on-air personality with publicly reported compensation, ranked by annual pay. Click any name to see their full profile and statement history.
Where These Numbers Come From
All salary figures are from publicly available sources: court filings (notably Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News, 2023), annual trade press reports (Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Forbes), and SEC disclosures for publicly traded parent companies. Figures marked as estimates are cross-referenced across multiple sources.
NPR and PBS personalities are excluded from compensation rankings because their salaries are not widely reported — a reflection of the structural difference between corporate and publicly funded media. The absence of data is itself a data point.