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Fox News Boss Roger Ailes' Very Good Year Nets Him $20 Million

Ailes.jpgAs the man behind Fox News, Roger Ailes tends to get caricatured and vilified quite a bit in the popular press. And this year he's been beaten up even more, as the launch of the Fox Business Network got off to a rocky start.

But we think that Roger probably sleeps pretty well at night. And after looking at News Corp.'s newly filed SEC documents, we gather that he probably sleeps on a very expensive mattress: Ailes earned $19.9 million in the last 12 months -- nearly double the amount he earned the year before.

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What did he do to earn that? Primarily, he ran Fox News, which is still crushing the competition. In July, FNC was drawing an average of 1.45 million viewers per day, while CNN could only muster 809,000. That performance alone netted Ailes a $4.5 million bonus.

And while Fox Biz is still embronyic at best, Ailes got a big bonus just for launching it: 333,000 shares of News Corp. stock, valued at $7.7 million. Ailes also got some other perks: His corporate car and travel allowance totaled  $168,173, for instance, and News Corp. also picked up a $52,000 tab for Ailes' personal security.

Here's the breakdown:

Salary: $5 million
Bonus: $1 million
Stock awards: $9.2 million
Fox News bonus: $4.5 million
Other compensation: $238,000

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That's a good year by almost any standard -- except for a couple other people who work at News Corp. COO Peter Chernin made $28.8 million during the same time, and his boss Rupert Murdoch made $27.6 million.

See Also: Fox Biz Still Can't Get Anyone To Watch
Thomson Reuters New Channel Won't "Challenge" CNBC
Fox Biz: Still Beating CNBC (On The Web)
Fox Business Snatches Walt Mossberg From CNBC
Fox News: We Photoshop, You Decide
Fox Biz: No One's Watching

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