According to a KPMG analysis, the industry’s 12 largest media and entertainment companies set another new content spending record in 2024, up 4% per year, paying about $210 billion.
Comcast/NBCuniversal ranked number one among the biggest players in KPMG’s 2024 content spending, with $37 billion (flat in 2023). It then follows YouTube ($32 billion), Disney ($28), Amazon ($2 billion) and Netflix ($17 billion).
Between 2020 and 2024, KPMG estimates that content expenditures between cohorts increased at a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10%.
However, according to KPMG’s analysis, BIZ has yet to reach the ceiling of content spending. “Some people claim that ‘peak content’ has reached it, but the industry believes it’s far from saturation. Although reality is even more subtle,” the company said in a report, “Money in Money: The Future of Content Sonsed and Business Models in Media.” “Content expenditures are not growing evenly across formats and genres.” For example, investment in sports rights continues to increase, but investment in other areas such as scripting and real-world programming has slowed down.
Scott Purdy, media strategy leader at KPMG US, said:
In particular, the shift towards user-generated content and ad support models and the continued growth of free ad support streaming services (such as Paramount’s Pluto TV and Fox’s Tubi) are poised to drive further content expansion, according to the report. UGC’s growth outweighs other segments and “it is likely to see a continuous expansion driven by an ad dollar increase and a robust creator economy,” the KPMG report said.
KPMG’s report also addresses the “evolving” impact of AI. Artificial intelligence is likely to make certain elements of the production process faster and cheaper over time, and “AI will strengthen the production process rather than take over it,” the company says.
Frank Alvarera, media and telecommunications leader at KPMG, said: “Today, media leaders who are thoughtful and strategically experimenting with AI are building up a competitive advantage for tomorrow.”
In the report, KPMG compiled data from primary and secondary sources between April and August 2025. The company’s content spending estimates are based on a selection group of “large, publicly available media companies” that includes financial data from 2020 to 24.
You can get a copy of the report at this link.
