Once again the Australian’s media section has gone all coy on the question who sits on top of the pile when it comes the pay of the CEOs and chairs of Australian media companies. A few weeks ago they listed the CEO pay for the country’s listed media companies, and there was one major omission and this morning there is another major omission from the list of chairs of those same companies. And guess what, News Corp was left off both lists, despite being the largest media company in the country with its shares listed on the ASX. It’s a new class of list: everybody else we can poke fun at, but us.

In this morning’s list, Nine chair Peter Costello was the top paid chair with A$425,000 based on the most recent annual report from the company. But that’s wrong, because Rupert Murdoch is the most highly paid chair of an Australian media company with a payment of US$5 million for the year to June 30, or around A$6.6 million. News did not disclose how much News Corp Australia’s executive chair Michael Miller was paid. But News Corp Australia is not the listed company, News Corp.

And, by the way, to update the list of CEO payments, News Corp’s Robert Thomson was paid US$9.9 million (A$13 million) for the year to June 30. That makes him the most highly paid media executive in this country and in fact one of the most highly paid of all Australian CEOs. — Glenn Dyer