Who are the current owners or controlling shareholders of the five largest US media conglomerates in 2025?

1. Who counts as the “largest” firms in 2025 — definitions and disagreement

Different outlets and compilations use revenue, market cap or content reach to define the “largest” media companies, producing slightly different top-five lists. Wikipedia-derived pages and industry summaries name Comcast NBCUniversal, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount Skydance among the largest by revenue in 2025 ^{[1] [2]}. Motley Fool’s 2025 coverage calls out a similar “Big Six” roster — including Comcast, Disney, Warner (Time Warner references persist in some pieces), News Corp and Viacom/Sony depending on the metric — and notes continued consolidation and reorganizations across 2025 ^[3]. This variation matters: asking “who owns” a firm depends on which firms you count as the five biggest ^[3].

2. Comcast NBCUniversal — public company with major institutional shareholders

Comcast is repeatedly identified as the world’s largest media conglomerate by revenue in 2025 and often tops lists of leading media companies ^{[2] [5]}. The provided sources emphasize Comcast’s scale and its 2025 structural moves (e.g., plans to spin off cable networks into Versant), but they do not list a single controlling family or owner in the supplied excerpts; instead coverage frames Comcast as a public corporation dominated by institutional shareholders and corporate governance structures ^{[3] [5]}. Specific controlling-shareholder names for Comcast are not found in the current reporting excerpts (not found in current reporting).

3. The Walt Disney Company — public conglomerate, no single-family control cited here

Disney consistently appears among the largest media companies in 2025 in these sources ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The materials provided discuss Disney’s scale and rank but do not identify a single controlling shareholder or family; Disney remains a widely held public company where institutional investors are influential but no single owner is named in the excerpts (not found in current reporting).

4. Warner Bros. Discovery — large, publicly traded, consolidation context

Warner Bros. Discovery is listed among the top media conglomerates in the 2025 summaries and is presented in analyses of the shrinking set of dominant media firms ^{[1] [3]}. The supplied sources describe it as one of the major consolidated companies but do not provide a specific “owner” or controlling shareholder in the excerpts provided (not found in current reporting).

5. Paramount Skydance — new entity and a named controlling family

Several provided pages describe the 2025 merger that created Paramount Skydance (merging Paramount Global and Skydance) and explicitly name the Ellison family as holding the controlling stake in Paramount Skydance, with minority stakes by the NFL and RedBird Capital Partners ^{[4] [6]}. This is the clearest single-owner/control attribution found among the sources: the Ellison family is cited as the controlling shareholder in Paramount Skydance ^[4].

6. News Corp, Viacom/Sony and other “big” names — mixed listings and ownership forms

Some lists and historical accounts still include News Corp, Viacom (or merged forms of Viacom/Paramount), and Sony among the largest players, but the sources show inconsistency about which make the top five in 2025 and how ownership is structured ^{[3] [7]}. News Corp and Sony appear in various “big company” lists; however, the provided excerpts do not supply single controlling-owner attributions for these firms ^{[3] [7]}. For Viacom/Paramount, the creation of Paramount Skydance has changed prior ownership lines ^{[6] [4]}.

7. Institutional ownership, private equity and the “who owns the owners” question

Sources emphasize that modern media ownership is often diffused: public companies with concentrated institutional shareholders, private-equity investments, and family stakes coexist. Academic and investigative summaries say institutional investors (e.g., large funds) hold substantial positions across media companies and that concentration debates hinge on these cross-holdings ^{[8] [9]}. Free Press and academic indexes argue ownership concentration places media power in the hands of billionaires, funds and conglomerates, urging scrutiny of “who owns the owners” ^{[9] [8]}.

8. Limits of the available reporting and recommended next steps

The supplied search results give clear attribution only for Paramount Skydance’s controlling Ellison family stake and identify Comcast as the largest-by-revenue firm in 2025; they do not consistently name single controlling shareholders for Comcast, Disney, or Warner Bros. Discovery within these excerpts ^{[4] [2] [3]}. To produce a definitive, dated list of the five largest U.S. media conglomerates and their controlling shareholders in 2025, consult company filings (SEC 10-K/DEF 14A), investor relations pages, and authoritative filings about the 2025 mergers (e.g., FCC approval documents) — documents not included among the current sources (not found in current reporting).