Speaking to investors at a Solomon Smith Barney conference in Arizona, Murdoch highlighted figures showing that local TV ad sales in December were up slightly on last year's figures, while forward bookings for January, February and March were level with figures for 2001.
He said, however, that the sports advertising market was still fairly soft.
Murdoch added that the company would continue to make acquisitions although it would not pay bid premiums. He said that the company did not need to be bigger to be more profitable.
His comments come almost two months after it was beaten in the race to acquire US satellite pay-TV broadcaster DirecTV by its smaller rival EchoStar.
Murdoch had made no secret that he wanted to consolidate his satellite broadcasting empire -- which has operations in Europe, Asia and Latin America -- with the US's biggest satellite broadcaster. However, he backed out of negotiations with DirecTV parent General Motors when the car giant decided to further delay its decision on the sale.
Murdoch added that it was close to agreeing a deal to sell its stake in its Italian pay-TV venture Stream to Vivendi Universal.
News Corp is also keeping a close eye on the performance of Kirch Pay-TV, in which it has a 22% stake. Murdoch said he would need to see great improvements in the business before October, when it can exercise an option to sell the stake back to German media giant Kirch.
If Kirch is forced to buy back the stake, which could be worth as much as £1.25bn, it may force Kirch into bankruptcy, which could result in Murdoch taking the company over, recent reports suggest.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand
Republic, join the debate in the .
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
