• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 31, 2012

Displaying a mixture of caution and disinterest in digital investments, media giants continue to put their money elsewhere, and into stock buybacks in particular.

In the first quarter of 2012, for instance, Walt Disney Co. repurchased nearly 22.2 million shares -- spending more than $899.5 million during the period, according to new data from SNL Kagan.

News Corp. repurchased 42.1 million shares for total spending of nearly $817.0 million on share buybacks. Moreover, in May, Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate said its board increased the authorization for future buyback purchases by $5 billion.

“So far, media conglomerates seem to be favoring stock buybacks,” according to SNL Kagan analyst Sarah Barry James.

As for the other media titans, Time Warner Inc. repurchased 19.7 million shares -- spending a total of $730.6 million, while Viacom Inc. spent $699.9 million to buy back 14.7 million shares.

CBS Corp. spent the least on repurchases during the period, paying $270.3 million to buy back 9.0 million shares.

While these sums may seem impressive, they pale in comparison to the buybacks during the latter half of 2011, when Time Warner and News Corp. each spent more than $1 billion on repurchases in both the third and fourth quarters.

Companies’ cautious investment approach is a direct result of the recent financial crisis. "What's happening now is kind of rooted in what happened in 2008 and 2009,"  says Fitch Ratings analyst Melissa Link -- referring to a period when the advertising market collapsed and the credit markets froze.

"There are not really a lot of big M&A targets out there,” Link adds.

In fact, across media channels, analysts see few -- if any -- large acquisition opportunities for cash-rich companies. “Interestingly, with the BSkyB deal off the table, [few analysts] foresees any of the media conglomerates using their free cash flow to fund large acquisitions in the near future,” James added.

Historically, it appears companies have simply made too many mistakes when it comes to online properties and their potential.

"For several decades there, most notably with the AOL-Time Warner acquisition, the big media and entertainment companies were very aggressive in doing what turned out to be very bad acquisitions," Steve Birenberg, president of Northlake Capital Management and portfolio manager of Entermedia Growth Partners, tells SNL.

Executives and investors, Birenberg added, don’t want to repeat the same mistakes.