The World's Largest Media Companies 2024: Disney, Charter Communications and Warner Bros. Discovery All Fall

The world's largest media companies garnered mixed reviews in 2023.

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First, the good. Box office revenues climbed 21% to $8.9 billion, according to Box Office Mojo. The top-grossing movies included Warner Bros.

Discovery's Barbie ($1.4 billion worldwide) and Universal Pictures' The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.4 billion) and Oppenheimer ($975 million).

While these numbers haven't yet reached the pre-pandemic high of $11.9 billion in 2018, when Black Panther led the charts, they show a strong recovery from 2020, when the pandemic dropped ticket sales by 80% to $2.1 billion.

Securing two of the top three spots at the global box office helped boost Comcast, the world's largest media company and parent of Universal, to No. 40 on the Global 2000, an 11-spot climb from last year.

Those successes helped lift Comcast's stock by 29% last year. The media sector as a whole performed well too. On an equal-weighted basis, shares of the 20 media companies in the Global 2000 averaged a 28% return, slightly outpacing the S&P 500 Index's 26% showing. Leading the pack were DraftKings (No. 1993) with a 209% return and Netflix (No. 212) with a 65% gain.