Good morning, and welcome to the Comcast Corporation 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast.
Thank you, Operator, and welcome everyone to Comcast's Annual Meeting. I will be serving as Chairman of this meeting. I'd like to declare that this meeting is duly convened, properly organized, and competent to transact business. The polls are open and will close as soon as the official business portion of the meeting has been completed without further notice. We encourage any shareholders to vote now if they have not yet done so. The agenda and rules of conduct that govern this meeting are posted on the meeting website. Joining me today are several members of management, including Tom Reid, our Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, Mike Cavanagh, our President, Jason Armstrong, our Chief Financial Officer, Dave Watson, CEO of Connectivity and Platforms, Marci Ryvicker, Head of Investor Relations, Jen Khoury, our Chief Communications Officer, and Liz Wideman, our SVP and Assistant Secretary.
Also attending the meeting are members of our Board of Directors and the audit partner of Deloitte & Touche, our independent auditors. Before we begin, I'd like to give just a special welcome to our newest director, Wonya Lucas. But I also really would like to thank Gerald Hassell and Maritza Montiel, who are retiring from the board, for all of their amazing years of great service and wise advice and counsel to this board and to all of you, our shareholders. Tom Reid will be the Moderator and Secretary of the meeting. Tom?
Thank you, Brian. This meeting has been called pursuant to notice dated April 26th, sent to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 1st. Jim Raitt of American Election Services has been appointed as the Judge of the Election to conduct the votes at this meeting and any adjournment or postponement. He has delivered to me his oath of office and has advised that, based on proxies presented prior to the meeting, a quorum exists for each matter to be voted upon. Twice during the meeting, we will entertain questions and comments from shareholders. First, we will address questions and comments related to specific company and shareholder proposals under consideration if the question specifies that it relates to a proposal. Later on in the meeting, we will address general questions and comments about our company.
Shareholders should carefully read the rules of conduct before submitting a question. To ensure that all shareholders are able to participate, shareholders may ask only one question per proposal and one question during the general question-and-answer discussion. We plan on completing this meeting by 10:00 A.M. We may make forward-looking statements and present certain non-GAAP numbers during this meeting. Please refer to the rules of conduct for additional information. We'll now proceed to the business of the meeting. We will consider three company proposals and one shareholder proposal. The first three proposals are company proposals that the board has recommended that shareholders vote in favor of. These proposals and the reasons for the board's recommendations are set forth in the proxy statement.
The company proposals are now properly before the meeting for consideration and action. The next item of business is the shareholder proposal to report on political expenditure alignment with company values. This proposal and the statements for and against its adoption are set forth in the proxy statement. The board has recommended that shareholders vote against this proposal. Operator, do we have a motion from Arjuna Capital or its duly authorized representative?
On the line is Julia Cederholm, who will now present the proposal. Please go ahead, Julia.
Good morning. My name is Julia Cederholm from investment management firm Arjuna Capital, and I move proposal four, asking Comcast to report on the congruency of its political and electioneering spending against publicly stated company values. In an era of intense political polarization, it's critical that Comcast is not only transparent in its political spending, but closely evaluates and monitors its political spending alignment. When political spending is misaligned with company values, Comcast risks undermining its business objectives and facing public scrutiny. We saw many companies recognize the importance of political spending alignment in response to the insurrection in January 2021. Many companies, including Comcast, pledged to no longer support candidates that perpetuated election misinformation, as they recognize the importance of upholding a democratic society where business can thrive and compete.
Especially in this election year, the public is paying significant attention to companies' political contributions and actions, and whether there is alignment with stated values and business objectives. In recent years, we've seen more and more companies face the ire of their employees and customers as a result of perceived misaligned political spending. In this environment, Comcast's stated values provide an important framework to adhere to when considering the positive and negative implications of its political contributions. Comcast's statement on political and trade associations lists some of its political spending contribution criteria but provides no transparency into how Comcast makes decisions as to whether there is alignment between a candidate and the company's stated values. Nor does the company appear to have regular monitoring of political expenditures outside of trade associations.
In opposition to this proposal, the board references its trendsetter designation in the Center for Political Accountability's CPA-Zicklin Index, which measures electoral spending transparency among the country's largest corporations. But the CPA-Zicklin does only that. It measures transparency, not alignment of political spending with corporate values, which is the request of this proposal. More and more companies are committing to assess political spending alignment, including AT&T and Cigna. And nonpartisan standard setters like the Center for Political Accountability and the Erb Principles for Corporate Political Responsibility advise companies to complete this exercise to mitigate reputational and business risks. We urge you to support proposal four so that Comcast assesses the congruency of its political spending against publicly stated company values. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Cederholm. We'll now respond to questions on any of the proposals before the meeting. We have one question related to the election of directors that goes to director independence and makes the point that qualified, experienced, and independent directors are essential for competent and efficient decision-making processes at boards and committees. Having a majority of independent members serving on the board, as well as an independent chairperson, is important to ensure challenging board discussions. The question cites the independence criteria of DWS, Corporate Governance and Proxy Voting Policy, which deems independence to mean 10 years of director tenure or less. The question points out that on our governance committee, we have two directors who exceed 10 years in tenure and states that, as a result, the current composition of our governance committee falls short of that DWS, Corporate Governance and Proxy Voting Policy.
Finally, the question asks if we have plans to reconstitute the governance committee to ensure, under DWS policies, majority independence.
Thank you for the question. Let me point out that 90% of our director nominees, nine out of 10, are independent, and we have added three new independent directors just since March of 2023. This is above and beyond the NASDAQ standard of majority independence. All members of the audit, comp, compensation, human capital, governance, and corporate responsibility committee are independent under NASDAQ rules under our own stricter internal standards. From time to time, we do look at the committee assignments, but we're very proud of the turnover of the board, the diversity of the board, and mostly the independence of the board. Thank you for the question.
The next question relates to the ratification of Deloitte & Touche as our independent auditor for 2024.
The question asks that, given Deloitte & Touche have been associated with the company since 1963, and this questioner looks for audit firm rotation at least every 10 years, the question asks, against that backdrop, can we expect a rotation of the Deloitte & Touche audit firm before the next AGM?
Thank you for the question. We'll certainly always look at the various criteria in making these selections. We'll factor that question in, but we're very pleased with Deloitte & Touche, their independence, their reputation, and their service. The next question relates to the advisory vote on pay. It relates to clawbacks, and it states that executive pay is an important aspect of good corporate governance. The questioner says that they expect that a board ensures full transparency regarding performance indicators and incentive structures.
The questioner then notes that the company has an existing clawback policy for executives, but states that its applicability does not expand beyond cases of accounting restatements and is therefore not considered robust. The question then is posed: would we consider expanding the applicability of the company's recoupment policy to events such as gross misconduct, fraud, malpractice, and reputational damage to the business? Tom, why don't you, since that's mostly legal question, good question, why don't you try to answer that?
The answer is we have expanded the scope of our clawback policies in the last year to follow the development of the law in this area. You have seen us a year ago exercise action regarding forfeiture of executive compensation in the circumstances you're talking about. We believe our clawback policy does maintain the right expectations for executive behavior.
We have no further questions on the proposals. I will now state that the polls have been open since registration began, and all shareholders and their proxies have by now had an opportunity to vote, and the polls for each matter are now closed. The judge of election has informed me that, based upon his preliminary tally, shareholders have voted in favor of each of the first three company proposals and against the approval of the shareholder proposal. He will execute a certificate with the final voting results that will be filed along with the minutes of this meeting. The voting results will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a Form 8-K within four business days. If any shareholders would like to submit a general question or comment and have not yet done so, please submit it now.
We will address questions following a brief report in the company that Brian Roberts will now give. Okay.
Thank you, Tom. It's a proud moment for me to look back at 2023 as it marked the best financial performance in our 60-year history. Our teams executed at a high level. We continue to position ourselves to lead in our various markets, support our communities, create value for shareholders through long-term growth. As you can see on slide 2, there's important information. Slide 3, we have top brands in very large and profitable markets. Our businesses are aligned with consumers' perpetual demand to be connected and entertained and informed. We have, I believe, the best products and a great roadmap for technology and a team that loves and constantly innovates. Next slide, you can see the starting point of our growth algorithm is continuing the positive mix shift underway at our company, driven by residential broadband, wireless, business services, connectivity, theme parks, studios, and streaming.
Together, these six growth businesses are margin accretive and comprised 55% of the company's total revenues. That proportion will only increase over time. These businesses generated revenue growth of 8% in 2023. When combined with our substantial share purchase or repurchase activity, it enabled us to deliver over 9% growth in adjusted EPS and free cash flow per share. Next slide, you'll see we reported the highest levels of revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS on record, and some $13 billion in free cash flow generation. We're the number one broadband provider in the U.S. and have delivered 4% revenue growth in domestic broadband and 5% growth in business services. We're also the number two broadband provider in the United Kingdom and continue to be one of the fastest-growing wireless providers in the U.S., with our lines up 24%.
For the second consecutive year, Peacock was also the fastest-growing streaming service in the United States, surpassing 30 million paid customers or subscribers at year-end and generating over 60% revenue growth, reaching $3.4 billion. We drove record attendance, revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA at our theme parks while continuing to invest in new attractions, parks, and experiences to fuel our future growth. At the studio part of the company, our film business had a fabulous year and ranked number one in worldwide box office. In television, we continued our success across our internal as well as third-party platforms. Next slide shows that, importantly, throughout the year, our team stayed focused on what we can control, executing our integrated operating and financial model, which is designed to create long-term shareholder value.
The objective is to continue to generate substantial Free Cash Flow and Free Cash Flow per share by investing in and driving growth in our high-margin businesses while protecting profitability in other businesses that have secular headwinds. Capital allocation, therefore, plays a critical role. We're balancing organic reinvestment, maintaining a very strong balance sheet, and at the same time, importantly, returning significant capital to our shareholders. You can see this on the next slide where we returned $16 billion to shareholders in 2023. Since 2014, we returned more than $90 billion, including buybacks and of over $50 billion of our stock, shrinking our split-adjusted share count by 25% in that timeframe. That's in addition to making a healthy and growing dividend, which we just increased 7% in January, marking the 16th consecutive annual increase.
As you can see on the next slide, we continue to focus on also making a positive impact in our communities and advance our efforts to protect the environment. I'm particularly pleased by our ongoing progress in helping more people realize the power of connectivity through Project UP: Unlimited Possibilities, which includes Internet Essentials, our high-speed, low-priced broadband service for eligible households. Here and in other related areas, we are leading change and are being recognized for what we do on behalf of our stakeholders, including our very passionate employees.
The next slide, we have intentionally made Comcast, and we will strive to make Comcast a great place to work, not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because it enables us to attract and retain the best talent and maintain our culture that my dad started some 60 years ago, where our teams act like owners, not short-term renters. Among our many recent awards and other accolades, we were honored as one of the world's most admired companies by Fortune. We placed number 2 on the Best Employer for Veterans list, number 7 on Best Workplaces for Parents list, where we're named a leading disability employer and one of the top 10 best companies just to work for.
Next slide, as we put it all together, the capabilities and commitment among our people, the scale and strength of our businesses, our track record of strong execution, and our ability to invest across macroeconomic, competitive, and various credit cycles have all contributed to our extraordinary long-term shareholder returns. If you bought 1,000 shares of stock for a total of $7,000 at our IPO in 1972, for that $7,000, you'd now have $16.1 million at the end of 2023 versus just $1.3 million if you had invested the same in the S&P 500. And while total shareholder returns in the short term can be impacted by a range of factors, I'm pleased to report that our performance in 2023 exceeded our peer group average as well as the S&P 500. So wrapping up, I'm very proud, as I said, of our results last year.
I'm grateful to each shareholder for your trust and support. We're very excited about the future as we continue to position and, frankly, reposition the company for longer-term growth. Tom, with that, do we have any questions?
We have one question relating to the dual-class share structure of the company. This shareholder states that they know we maintain a multi-class A and B capital structure and states that their position is that there should be one share, one vote at every company and that our multi-class structure does not have a time-based sunset provision. Their question is, when can we expect the company to introduce a sunset provision? I think the debate on this point, to make it the beginning and at the end, is that the B shares, just like the A shares, are the private property of the shareholder. In the case of the B shares, it's of the property of the founding family.
Neither the company nor the board has the power or legal authority to make changes to that structure, to make changes to the rights of the B share, or to compel their retirement or repurchase. On that basis, both in 2018 and earlier this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed with our position that we did not need to include a shareholder proposal on this very question.
The next shareholder input we have is a comment from Jane Garcia, a proud Detroiter and longtime shareholder, who would like to applaud the company for its continued efforts to bridge the digital divide by providing internet access and tablets to low-income families and seniors. This support provides the tools necessary to stay connected to educational, medical, and social services needed to thrive in today's world.
Jane would like to recognize Jackie Puente for the excellent job she does representing Comcast nationally and Shannon Dillin, Comcast's boots on the ground, working with nonprofits and making sure so many communities receive the support they need.
Thank you very much for that nice feedback, and we'll pass those lovely comments on to the team. As I said earlier, we're very passionate about initiatives such as the one you're referring to.
The next question relates to political spending and asks if the company has screened its political contributions to exclude candidates that have publicly pledged their support for anti-democratic efforts. The answer is that under our political contribution policy, as laid out in the proxy, this is one of the criteria that we do screen for.
I think that engagement in the political process is important for our business, which we have reconfirmed over the past year while reviewing and updating our political giving and practices. Maybe we'll leave it at that.
No further questions.
Okay. Well, thank you all. There being no further questions to come before the meeting, the meeting is hereby adjourned. Thank you for attending.
The annual meeting has now concluded. Thank you for participating in the meeting.