Big media buy back shares with cable TV cash

"It's consistent with one of the big themes for this year in media: the focus is on returning cash to shareholders. I don't think acquisitions are on the radar right now," said Standard & Poor's analyst Tuna Amobi.

News Corp, still reeling from the phone-hacking scandal in Britain, has bought just over 6 percent of its free float back since July, and executives reiterated their ambition to complete their $5 billion buyback by June 30.

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Time Warner spent nearly $5.6 billion, returning cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends last year. On Wednesday the company, which owns HBO and CNN, raised its quarterly dividend by 11 percent and said its board had authorized another $4 billion in buybacks for 2012.

Disney raised its quarterly dividend by 20 percent while Viacom spent $700 million buying back shares in the December quarter alone.

Cable networks like Disney's ESPN, Viacom's MTV, News Corp's FX and Time Warner's TNT make money from advertising sales and carriage fees that they charge cable, satellite and phone distributors.

The media companies reported carriage fee revenue growth of 8 to 12 percent, and while there are some doubts that advertising sales growth can be sustained, S&P's Amobi argued the climate was not as bad as feared.

"There are still question marks on advertising but nothing earth shattering," said Amobi.

And there is one more reason why media conglomerates might feel confident even if cable networks' strong performance starts to soften: The Albanian Army.

The reference is one famously used last year by Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes to disparage online video service Netflix Inc's impact on his suite of premium cable channels like HBO.

But Bewkes and other media bosses have changed their tune and now welcome the 'new money' from Netflix, Amazon.com Inc and others who want to launch online video services with their extensive library of TV shows and movies.

News Corp President Chase Carey said the company received $200 million in the first half of its current fiscal year from Netflix and Amazon. Viacom announced a new deal with Amazon on Wednesday.