Murdoch and Chernin are, respectively, the chief executive officer and chief operating officer of New Yorkbased News Corporation, the media company that operates the Times newspaper group in the UK, Sky Television, the Fox television network in the US, among other things.

In 2005, Murdoch had a total pay package of $25.9m, while Chernin's pay package was $42.5m. That's more than $68m for just two executives. (Total pay includes base salary, annual bonus, my estimate of the present value of stock options granted in 2005 using the Black-Scholes model; the value at award of free shares of stock; payouts under other forms of long-term incentive compensation; and miscellaneous compensation. Pay data were obtained from Salary. com's CompAnalyst database. ) Question: Do any other large US companies hand their CEO/COO combo that much in total pay? For an answer, I examined 199 companies with market values of $3bn or more. The average total pay for the duo at the top was $13.7m.

At the high end we find Goldman Sachs, where the top two pulled down $80m in 2005. They are followed by Lehman Brothers at $70m. Then comes News Corporation in third place at $68m.But at least Goldman's and Lehman's executives got there by taking some risk.

Consider that the combined base salaries at both Goldman and Lehman were $1.2m for each company. At News Corp, the total was a whopping, risk-less $12.6m - $4.5m for Murdoch and $8.1m for Chernin.

Then there's the combination of base salary and bonus. Murdoch and Chernin took out a total of $55m. That's more than double the $27m and $20m paid to the Goldman and Lehman duos.

At first glance, it's hard to figure how Murdoch and Chernin could earn so much in bonus - $21m million each. But the secret lies in the formula that drives their goody packages - a formula that generates bonus pay based on growth in earnings per-share, or EPS, from the previous year.

EPS growth isn't a bad performance measure. But at News Corp certain adjustments are made to EPS that warrant plenty of shareholder attention.

Excluded from the bonus determination are "non-cash intangible asset impairment charges, writedowns on investments to realisable values, gains or losses on the sale or other disposition of businesses or investments and items classified as extraordinary items."

After eliminating those often-inconvenient items - many of them costs that lower true EPS - the adjusted EPS is compared to the preceding year to calculate the percentage growth.

Now with a combined base salary of $12.6m, you would think Murdoch and Chernin might be willing to stand out in the hot sun for a long time before being allowed to proceed to the bonus oasis.

Think again. Suppose EPS decreased -yes, friends, a decrease -- 13%. Under News Corp's formula the two would each receive a bonus of $4m. That's on top of a combined salary of $12.6m - all for giving the shareholders a stick in the eye.

The bonus is capped at $25m for each executive in any given year, provided EPS increases by 40%. Now think what happens in a year in which EPS drops all the way to 1%. Sorry chief, no bonus.

But then you're basically set for life.

If EPS increased the next year to a skimpy 1.4 cents a share -- a 40% increase, you get $25m. You can reap a further $25m each year by more 40% increases. But it take years, and many satisfying $25m bonuses, before EPS is back to where it started before the profit collapse.

News Corp over the years has been a decent but not a stellar stock-market performer. Its total return between 20 May 1986, its first trading day, and 27 October 2006, was 11.4% a year, just about the same as the 11.5% return on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

But investing in News Corp isn't as safe as investing in the S&P 500. In the past 20 fiscal years ended June 2006, the company beat the index 10 times. And its stock price has been 2.2 times as volatile as that of the index.So there's risk for investors, but not much for Murdoch and Chernin. When it comes to playing fair with shareholders, they are prime exemplars of the Marie Antoinette School of Management.

Oh, and one more thing: Starting last May, Murdoch has been getting a housing allowance of $50,000 a month to pay for his New York digs.

Presumably, that's enough for a place big enough to hold all the sacks of money you aren't going to need to spend.