Mattick’s renumeration in the year to 2008 was $1.173m, up by 51.7 per cent from the previous year, while his partner Salter came in at ten grand less, earning $1.163m, but still a healthy 50.5 per cent increase in the year before.

The pair made numbers 21 and 22 respectively in the top 40 media sector earners, with the whopping rise in their packages likely due to the rise in Salmat’s substantially increased revenue derived from the $318m purchase of HPA in August 2007.

Salmat executives Ashley Fenton and Colin Wright are also in the top 40, at numbers 38 and 39 with salary packages valued at $886,700 and $859,500 respectively, meaning that Salmat paid its top four executives a combined package of some $4m.

Richard Allely from PMP took a ten per cent hit in earnings during the year, but still came in at number 33, with an income of $934,000. Former PMP chief David Kirk has seen his salary rocket since he became CEO at Fairfax, his salary package is now $3.4m, which itself is up by 23 per cent on what Fairfax paid him last year.

Top of the media list is John Alexander, chairman of Consolidated Media, which owns 25 per cent of PBL. His income for the year was $19.1m, although this included a handy $15m termination benefit when PBL was split into Consolidated and Crown.

The renumeration packages of Michael Hannan and IPMG senior executives are not known, neither are those of the Taylor briothers from Franklin Web, Bruce Sinnott, AIW’s Peter Clarke, Graham Morgan at Geon or new Blue Star CEO Chris Mitchell.

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