Row over Sky-high payout

Chief’s haul is 334 times that of his staff

THE boss of Sky raked in £16.3million in pay and perks last year – as customers faced up to more price hikes.

Jeremy Darroch’s package rocketed by 254%, the satellite giant’s annual report revealed.

The windfall was fuelled by nearly £14m worth of bonuses.

It means Darroch has earned nearly £80m since 2010. Yet it comes after Sky – home of hit show Game of Thrones – unleashed another wave of price rises for phone, broadband and bundle TV customers in March. nearly £100m to just under £1.5bn.

Stefan Stern, director of the High Pay Centre, said: “Only in the crazy and broken world of CEO pay could a boss receive such a huge ‘performance related’ bonus when profits have fallen.

“This is the sort of excess that needs to be curbed.”

A Sky spokesman said Darroch’s long-term incentive plan was “the result of an outstanding result over three years which has seen 2.5 million customers added and revenue increase by 16%”.

The company also pointed to surveys by regulator Ofcom, which regularly rated it highly for customer service.

GRAB IT Game of Thrones is one of Sky’s top money-spinners

In June last year it upped the prices of 10 of its most popular TV packages. Darroch’s basic salary rose by 2.5% to more than £1m. His package also included £157,000 towards his pension and a near £2m annual bonus. But the biggest boost came from a...