Liberty Media Corp. said Thursday it plans to spin off its cable-business holdings into a new publicly traded company, called Liberty Broadband.

The new entity will be spun off to Liberty Media shareholders by the end of the year and be comprised of Liberty Media's roughly 26 percent stake in Charter Communications Inc., a minority investment in Time Warner Cable Inc. and a mobile subsidiary called TruePosition.

Greg Maffei, Liberty Media's chief executive, said the company believes making the split will create greater choice and transparency for investors and is timed in part to Charter's recent agreement with Comcast Corp., which will result in Charter gaining millions of new video subscribers.

Douglas County-based Liberty Media, which is controlled by cable pioneer John Malone, also reported its first-quarter results Thursday, posting higher operating profit for the period.

Liberty Media posted an operating profit of $155 million, versus $151 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue improved 28 percent to $1.01 billion, compared with analysts' expectations of $1.05 billion.

Liberty Interactive Corp., another company controlled by Malone, said its quarterly revenue edged up, driven by its QVC home-shopping network.

Liberty Interactive has sharpened its focus on QVC, as well as its e-commerce businesses. The company said in October that it would reorganize its tracking stocks to create new holdings called QVC Group and Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings.

Liberty Interactive posted an operating profit for the quarter of $244 million, down from $260 million in the prior-year period.

Revenue rose 0.5 percent to $2.45 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters projected $2.52 billion.

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Liberty Media to spin off cable businesses