Pali Capital media analyst Richard Greenfield, whose “Dear (name the media Chief Executive here)” research notes are both notorious for vitriol and renown for analysis, is now taking a page from billionaire investor Carl Icahn and urging the world’s largest media company to break itself up.

Greenfield upgraded his recommendation to “Buy” from “Neutral” on the belief that the sell-off or split-off of AOL, a split-off of Time Warner Cable, a sell-off of Time Inc. and a $14 billion stock buyback could send shares rising to at least $25 over the next 12 months. That’s a nice premium to its current level of about $21.

Greenfield says a Time Warner board meeting later this month will “hopefully set in motion some of the structural changes” and render a decision on a possible buyback. (Time Warner is virtually done with a $20 billion buyback that it announced following its resolution with Icahn last year.)

Some reporters on the beat will agree with at least one thing in Greenfield’s note: “Investors need a ‘PhD’ in TWX. Time Warner reported Q1 07 results by issuing a 17-page press release (detailing reported earnings, earnings before impairment charges, one-time gains/losses, merger/restructuring charges, legal reserves and other miscellaneous non-recurring items), 13 pages of trending schedules, three pages of business outlook, and a 20-page slideshow to accompany the earnings call; not to mention a book-like 10-Q.

“While one certainly has more than enough information to analyze TWX, its complexity has, without doubt, become a liability in the public market.”

Thanks Rich. Can we move on to Liberty Media now?