News Corp quarterly profit up on movies, Fox News

New York, May 9 (Reuters) Rupert Murdoch's News Corp said today quarterly profit rose, helped by movie titles such as ''Night at the Museum'' and the DVD release of ''Borat,'' as well as an increase in affiliate revenue for cable channel Fox News.

Murdoch, who made a surprise billion, or per share, offer to buy Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones&Co to gain a foothold in the business media industry, defended the deal during a morning conference call.

''We made the offer at what we believe is a full and more than fair price because our two companies are a perfect fit,'' Murdoch said.

The offer, if successful, would have no impact on its share buyback program, executives said.

News Corp., home to the Fox television network and online teen hangout MySpace, said fiscal third-quarter profit rose to 1 million, or 27 cents per share, from 0 million, or 26 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 21 percent to .53 billion.

The results were in line with analysts' average forecast for earnings per share of 27 cents and beat revenue expectations of .81 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Growth was fueled by News Corp.'s filmed entertainment unit, which posted an 82 percent rise in operating income to 0 million, including the release of DVDs such as ''The Devil Wears Prada'' and ''Little Miss Sunshine.'' Cable network programming saw a 34 percent increase in operating income to 2 million, helped by growth for Fox News, the FX network and regional sports networks.

Those increases were partially dampened by declining operating profit at the company's television business due to losses for MyNetworkTV and a relatively flat performance for its newspaper businesses due to weakness in Britain.

Looking ahead, the company backed its earlier full year operating income outlook calling for a rise of 14 percent to 16 per cent.

It also continues to expect to match or exceed full year interactive revenue of 0 million, primarily from its popular Internet social network MySpace.

News Corp's Class A shares fell 10 cents, or less than 1 per cent, to .65 on the New York Stock Exchange in early trading.

REUTERS PM HS2043