According to a report by corporate accountability company Spendwell, the top ten corporations that own nearly all the major cable networks, streaming platforms, and film and T.V. studios spent more than $660 billion on stock buybacks in the last decade.
Stock buybacks are a controversial practice allowing publicly traded companies to repurchase their own company’s stock rather than reinvest profits into their businesses and workforces. Until the early 1980s, the multi-billion dollar stock buybacks that have become commonplace today, were generally considered a form of self-dealing and market manipulation.
Apple is at the top of the list of entertainment industry stock repurchasers, followed by Comcast (NBCUniversal), Disney, Paramount Global, Amazon, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
In the past decade, Apple has spent over half a trillion dollars on buybacks, more than any other publicly traded company in the country.
Meanwhile, the companies that own the studios known as the ‘Big 4’ (Netflix, Disney, NBCUniversal, and WarnerBros. Discovery) collectively spent nearly 100 billion dollars on stock buybacks.