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C2HR Finds Bonuses, Equity Lead 2025 Pay Shifts

Reprinted from CableFax Daily
February 19, 2026

Volatile Market Shapes Pay

Mergers, labor movement and industry restructuring shaped how employers approach compensation strategies in 2025. As companies navigate a volatile market, the Content & Connectivity Human Resources (C2HR) Association’s Annual Compensation Surveys reveal that more are trending away from broad salary increases in favor of targeted bonuses, equity incentives and strategic investments in multi-faceted roles. For some, the commitments to gaining and retaining talent have outpaced inflation, too.

CFX got an early look at C2HR’s surveys, which saw pay among content developers—such as AMC Networks, Charter, Hallmark Media and even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (it sponsors BYUtv)—rise again. Among executives, although it wasn’t the 8.9% increase recorded in 2024, the average total direct compensation (TDC) had a 5.8% improvement. That was largely driven by bonuses as opposed to equity, with executive base pay increasing by 3.3% in 2025 as well.

The trend of bonuses being the catalyst for higher compensation extended into content developers’ middle-management positions, where TDC grew 5% (up from 4% in 2024), while base salary growth remained flat at 3.1%. On the other hand, individual contributors in non-managerial roles had base salary growth nearly cut in half after dropping from 3.2% in 2024 to 1.8% in 2025.

Moderate Wage Growth

C2HR characterized wage growth among connectivity providers, including Cable One, DirecTV and Mediacom, as “moderate.” TDC for management positions increased 5.2%, up from 4.5% in 2024, while salaried employees had 6.4% growth compared to 4.4% in the prior year. However, those gains were mainly results of equity, as base salary increases for management and salaried workers grew by 2% and 2.2%, respectively.

“Companies continue to work to reward employees and are using the levers they have,” Hali Croner, CEO of The Croner Company, said to CFX. “Given smaller budgets, companies are using other performance-based compensation elements to reward differential performance. Demonstrating to top performers that their pay can continue to rise and that there are incentive awards is critical in attracting and retaining talented staff.”

All of the participating connectivity providers in C2HR’s surveys offered short-term cash awards in 2025, compared to 88% of content developers that exercised the benefit. Those bonuses were extended to 55% of connectivity support workers and 40% of content support employees. However, the actual payouts varied based on business results. Connectivity companies saw bonuses average 4% under target, whereas the content side came in at 5% above target.

Lack of Jobs with Significant Increase in Pay

But what came as a surprise in C2HR’s findings for 2025 was the lack of “hot jobs” among connectivity companies. Hot jobs are positions that see wage raises that are significantly above the industry average. “For the first time in recent memory, there were no hot jobs among connectivity participants,” C2HR notes, though when it assessed paired comparisons for 2024 and 2025, there was one sector that had an average base salary improvement of 4%: HR. Meanwhile, most of the other job-specific raises fell behind the inflation rate of 2.7%, including customer care (1%), construction (1%), software engineering (2%) and finance/accounting (2%).

“We believe that this may reflect the ‘employer’s market’ where it is not as necessary to pay a premium for new employees in most job families,” Croner said. “AI engineers may be the current exception across many industries.”

M&A and company restructuring could also impact the absence of hot jobs. On the content developer side, C2HR said the latest study “required a deeper dive into the data than in previous years,” but senior “preditor” roles (a hybrid of producer and editor) garnered a 6% raise. Lower-level preditor findings came in at 3%. Additionally, within media relations, associate publicists scored a 6% rise, and those who were new to their roles had a 17% higher base pay on average.

“There have been shifts in survey results for some roles (e.g., results materially shifted up or down). We find that these are due to changes in companies who have matched the jobs and the incumbents in those jobs, reflecting shifting organizations and staffing,” Croner said. “When we review data that is paired (i.e., watching the change in results for companies with year-over-year matches to the same roles), we find that the trends are more stable and there is moderate salary growth overall.”

Salary Adjustment Budgets Are Stable

Both connectivity and content companies continued to bolster salary adjustment budgets, with the former averaging 3.1% and the latter checking in at 3.3%. C2HR’s surveys predict increases will stay consistent throughout 2026, showing pre-pandemic levels of 3.1% for connectivity providers and 3.2% for content creators.

C2HR’s surveys had 34 content developers and 11 connectivity providers participate, analyzing around 138,223 total employees (35,762 and 102,461, respectively).


Since 2002, C2HR’s Annual Compensation Surveys have uncovered market pressures and identified industry-specific benchmarking metrics that technology, media and entertainment companies use to ensure competitive pay strategies. C2HR has commissioned The Croner Company, a leading compensation research and consulting firm, to conduct its compensation surveys.

For additional information or to participate in C2HR’s Compensation Surveys, fill out this form:


CONTACT THE CRONER COMPANY

The Croner Company’s surveys and consulting services are relied upon by organizations at all stages of growth to establish and modify pay practices and align compensation with mission, values and market.

Bonuses and Equity Lead Pay Shifts for Jobs in Content and Connectivity