I think you might be comparing apples to oranges here. A fairer comparison would be studio executive and / or producer vs the person who runs Occidental Petroleum or Viacom. You're comparing two, vastly different kinds of employees by comparing actors to executives. It's a little like comparing an artist to the Pope that commissioned him and saying they're the same. Those that act and earn a whole truck full of money are doing so with an entire different set of skills and talents, powers, market forces and needs to that of an executive. I'm not saying it would change the outcomes at all. In fact, it might strengthen your arguments because you could compare like with like.
While I understand your point, I'm not sure it's entirely correct to say it's apples to oranges. The point wasn't to look at one field or another, necessarily, but rather to look at where the focus of people tends to be. The American public (the left in this example) aren't necessarily looking at the executive producers and such, rather they're looking at the actors, the top directors, and etc. Those are the people who make the names and who have wealth to distribute. Some actors, incidentally, have done just that - they have "rebelled" against the massive disparities in pay and have taken it upon themselves to equalize this. Keanu Reeves is famously known for this. On the other hand (the right side by this example), people have a tendency to look at the CEOs of a company. Even in THAT case, there do exist many other people that could be examined over the CEOs and they often don't get to make the decisions that affect us, but rather serve as a figurehead for the company or organization. So the apples to apples comparison wasn't necessarily intended to be their role, but rather how the public perceives them. I would argue in that latter sense that the CEOs are most comparable to the actors, directors, etc. that have also made names for themselves. Those are the people that have the ear of the public in the first place.
You're underestimating the importance of these executives. The real power in TV definitely lies in the executive's and the producer's hands. They also enforce ideological conformity. They approve the screenplays, budgets, marketing. Without them there are no stars and visa versa. They're related, but not the same, so it creates an odd comparison.