Media companies produce and distribute films, television series, music, books, news, and radio programming. The public is consuming more and more of their offerings every year. The proliferation of mobile devices and digital media organizations has greatly increased screen time over the past decade, and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated the trend. The average American now spends more than 13 hours per day consuming or interacting with some form of media as the use of connected TV and mobile devices continues to grow.
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Companies with a strong foothold in digital media keep expanding their consumer engagement, while legacy businesses that rely heavily on older media formats are struggling. As a result, the industry has experienced a lot of mergers and acquisitions over the past few years. The bulk of the industry’s power is now consolidated in just a handful of companies, including Walt Disney (DIS 1.0%), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD 2.06%), and Paramount Global (PARA 0.84%).
Companies that specialize only in media are under increasing pressure to offer direct-to-consumer (DTC) services, such as Netflix (NFLX 2.14%). Even radio producers have turned to podcasts to capitalize on the shift to on-demand media consumption.
Above the noise of new media platforms, ideas, and companies, a few publicly traded media organizations deserves special consideration. Here are four top picks:
Warner Bros. Discovery is one of the biggest pure-play television media companies in the market. It is the result of a merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia, and it has a sweeping portfolio of cable networks reaching a broad range of demographics. It’s also the home of Warner Bros. studios, which creates film and television productions, DC Comics, and HBO.
The company owns strong content and brands, including HGTV, the Food Network, Discovery, CNN, and HBO. It may be even stronger in international markets, where it owns an attractive portfolio of sports broadcast rights, including the Olympic Games.
The company is heavily focused on direct-to-consumer streaming. It operates the Max streaming service, which combines the content of HBO Max, Discovery+, and CNN. Shortly after the merger, CEO David Zaslav began ruthlessly cutting streaming content costs, canceling several series and films in an effort to make the segment profitable for investors. The efforts paid off as revenues continued to climb while costs came down in 2024.
Netflix is the largest DTC video service in the world. It began buying first-run rights for original series in 2012 and has been profiting from its growing offerings of original series and films ever since. Its massive scale provides the company with data that it uses to inform content licensing and production decisions and improve the user experience.
After years of funding the business with debt and producing negative free cash flow, Netflix can now self-fund its content purchases. Aside from video, the company is also exploring video game development.
Netflix made several changes in recent years to invigorate its subscriber growth. It added an ad-supported tier, making it more affordable to subscribe to its service. It also started cracking down on password sharing in 2023. The two efforts combined to accelerate growth in its subscriber base, which totals more than 275 million households around the world.
Walt Disney is one of the biggest media companies in the world, especially after acquiring most of 21st Century Fox. It has a very strong portfolio of intellectual property, including Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and its many classic Disney brands. It also owns the Disney and ESPN television brands. ESPN has long-term contracts to broadcast premium sporting events, including Monday Night Football.
Disney’s push into DTC streaming has gone well since it acquired operational control of Hulu and launched Disney+. Strategic price increases and bundling have helped push its streaming operations to profitability.
After a year of sluggish performance, Disney brought back former CEO Bob Iger. He replaced Bob Chapek, whom Iger had named as his replacement in early 2020. Investors cheered the move, expecting that Iger would be able to work some Disney magic, just as he did during his original 15-year run as CEO.
The company also owns a world-famous theme park business and licenses its characters to toy and game makers. The theme park operations typically produce higher operating margins than Disney’s film studio, media networks, and DTC businesses.
That’s something to keep in mind when considering Disney as a media and entertainment stock investment. For example, while many other media companies thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney’s parks business held it back. It created a drag on operating profits and cash flow, forcing management to suspend its dividend. The diversification of its business can be seen as a good thing for some investors, but it also means Disney is not a pure-play media stock.
Paramount Global benefits from operating one of only four broadcast networks in the U.S. Its market position ensures broad distribution and large audiences. Its cable networks, which include BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Showtime, are well diversified across audience demographics, and it’s also the owner of its namesake film and television studios.
The company rebranded its direct-to-consumer efforts in 2021 and now combines much of Viacom, Paramount, and CBS content into a single streaming service, Paramount+. It further consolidated its offering by including Showtime as part of Paramount+ in 2023. In Europe, Paramount is partnering with Comcast’s (CMCSA 0.92%) Sky for the distribution of Paramount+ in some markets and a co-owned SkyShowtime service in other markets. The partnership should improve consumer awareness and reduce distribution costs.
Paramount is also a leader in the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) market with Pluto TV. It uses the streaming service to further promote its content and paid streaming options.
Several attributes qualify a media company as a good investment:
