Will major media conglomerates soon unload some of their biggest assets? Executives from top media firms were asked about possible spin-offs and/or division sales during two high profile media conferences last week.

Among the questions raised at Merrill Lynch’s media conference in California and Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia in New York: Will Barry Diller’s IAC (IACI) unload its struggling Home Shopping Network division? Will CBS (CBS) spin off its thriving outdoor advertising business? And if so, would it package in its slower-growth radio unit as well? Will News Corp. (NWS) sell off any more assets once its $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones closes? News Corp. disclosed plans earlier this summer to sell some local Fox TV stations and an international billboard business.

And then there’s my parent company Time Warner (TWX), which faces a dizzying array of permutations. Should it spin off the rest of its Time Warner Cable (TWC) division that isn’t already public? And what about AOL, the Internet division whose turnaround recently hit a speed bump, and the slow-growth Time Inc. magazine publishing unit?

Looking at each individual scenario, an eventual IAC sale of HSN seems the most likely, since the company could swap HSN with John Malone’s Liberty Media conglomerate, which owns HSN rival QVC, in exchange for the stake in IAC that Liberty owns. Diller said he’s not currently shopping HSN but he wouldn’t rule out an eventual deal.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves told investors at the Merrill conference last week that he was not interested in spinning off the billboard business since the division, which accounts for nearly 15 percent of the company’s total sales and operating profits, is doing so well.

Both News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and COO Peter Chernin indicated in separate presentations at the Goldman and Merrill Lynch conferences last week that News Corp. was not likely to be selling many more assets.

Finally, Time Warner chairman and CEO Dick Parsons did indicate a willingness to possibly spin off more of Time Warner Cable to investors, and also did not rule out an eventual spin off of AOL down the road. But he suggested that nothing was imminent regarding a sale or spin off of either AOL or Time Inc.

These are all very interesting questions. And it may be fair to suggest that some media companies are too bloated and that pruning some divisions might help boost investors’ returns. But all the spinoff and sale talk seems a just bit odd now since the timing isn’t exactly right.

This summer’s credit crunch has led to a reassessment of risk both among possible acquirers as well as investors. As such, investors may not be willing to buy shares of newly public companies that are considered big media cast-offs. What’s more, sellers may not be as eager to make new deals, especially if they’d have to do so with debt.

“Media companies that may have been exploring deals now are probably waiting to see how the markets settle. The uncertainty has caused many deals to be put on hold. Media firms that may have been considering spin-offs may not get the same price they would have months ago,” said Glover Lawrence, co-founder of McNamee Lawrence & Co, an investment bank based in Boston.

Richard Dorfman, managing director of Richard Alan Inc., an investment company focused on the media industry based in New York, agreed. He said that media companies would face a tough time selling underperforming units, since the most likely buyers are private equity firms.

“The only real buyers out there for laggards would be the private equity guys, and they are going to be hunkering down. The debt markets have changed radically in the past two months. It’s not going to be easy to sell divisions or subsidiaries,” he said.

But there’s a problem for the media companies. While this may not be the best time to be trying to sell off assets, pressure on big media conglomerates is likely to grow, since many of the media titans are perceived by Wall Street as not having done enough to boost their digital initiatives.

“With the impact the Internet has on big media, what you have is shareholders and executives wondering if they are overemphasizing ‘old media.’ Clearly, some are getting outside pressure to rethink their portfolios and that’s going to continue,” said Reed Phillips, managing partner with DeSilva & Phillips, a New York-based investment bank focusing on the media industry.

To that end, Robin Diedrich, a media analyst with Edward Jones in St. Louis, said it could make sense for Time Warner to some day sell AOL if the company is unable to turn it around with its strategy of focusing on online advertising. Likewise, she said CBS might want to consider selling off other “traditional” businesses. She did not think that Walt Disney (DIS) or Viacom (VIAB) needed to make any major strategic moves to restructure, however.

But Phillips said he would not be surprised to eventually see more spin-offs or asset sales from all the big media firms. “For most of the big media companies, everything is being reviewed and there are very few sacred cows,” he said.

Still, the timing has to be right. It’s hard to imagine companies pulling the trigger on a big deal until Wall Street gets over its credit jitters. Even if media companies are eager to dump slower-growth divisions, don’t expect imminent deals.

“What a lot of media companies are doing is reassessing what they own,” said David Gurwin, chair of the entertainment and media law group and the technology transactions group at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a Pittsburgh-based law firm. “But I don’t think any media company lives in a vacuum. No industry is immune from what’s happening in the financial markets.”