Are mickey mouse degrees just easy money for universities?

Oh give over mate!

So why do graduates of media studies and ex-poly unis find it harder to get employment?

they do?

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/what_do_graduates_do_media_studies.htm

Those figures actually help the point that media studies is useless.

Yes, Media Studies has a higher UK employment rate on the face of it, yet along with art and design it has the highest unemployment rate too, and considerably fewer postgraduate students. That's an above average unemployment rate.
We also need to look at the sorts of jobs that media graduates are getting. Do they have dead-end jobs in McDonald's or Asda, or real careers?
One thing that does say is that Media graduates have low prospects overseas too, whereas if you look at languages students, the world is their oyster.

It's not quite a clear cut as that - the subjects with the highest "unemployment rates" aren't the ones that most people assume they are

Media: Believed to be unemployed 12.3%
Computer Science: Believed to be unemployed 13.7%
Electrical Engineering: Believed to be unemployed 11.0%
Mechanical Engineering: Believed to be unemployed 10.1%
Art & Design: Believed to be unemployed 12.2%
History: Believed to be unemployed 9.8%
Sport Science: Believed to be unemployed 5.6%

It's no surprise that media studies grads don't go into postgraduate study, just like it's no surprise that a lot of law graduates don't get a job after graduating but go on to get further qualifications (and if you're talking about "easy money for universities" then the LPC/BVC courses and law conversion courses are much more suspect than a TV production BSc). What is quite interesting is the number of media studies grads who go on to get relevant, good jobs in the industry:

Broadcasters (announcers, disc jockeys, news readers) 3.9%
Graphic and commercial artists 1.2%
Journalists 1.0%
Other jobs in arts, design, culture and sports 4.7%
Photographers and audio-visual equipment operators 1.7%
Researchers (media) 1.2%
Web designers 1.2%
Editors 1.0%
Directors, producers 1.1%

(and then there's the other 10% of graduates in marketing).

Considering media studies as a subject covers courses from the very vocational work focused to academic film studies, where transferable skills are an accident rather than a deliberate part of the course, I'm impressed at the number of graduates who were able to find vacancies in such a competitive workplace smack bang in the middle of a recession.

they do?

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/what_do_graduates_do_media_studies.htm