Among the other notable gainers, Walt Disney closed up 4% to $26.02, CBS improved 3% to $9.84, Sony Corp. was up 7% to $24.89, and News Corp. was a bit of a laggard in the group--only improving 2% to $10.99.

Cable system operators witnessed some moderate gains: Comcast grew 4% to $17.77. Cablevision Systems was 3% higher to $18.28. Satellite TV distributor DirecTV was up 2% at $22.49, as was its competitor, Dish Network, which had a 4% rise to $16.28.

Some TV station groups, still hurting from lower ad sales projections, went in the other direction: Gray Television was down 4% to $0.55 and Mediacom Communications was off 5% to $4.50.

Media stocks were helped by a broad rally overall. Dow Jones Industrials rose a big 305.45 points--or 3%--to 9,625.28. The S&P 500 improved 4% to 1005.75. Some investors may also have bought today because of expected good earnings results expected later in the week for Time Warner and Walt Disney.

Both TW and Disney are somewhat less dependent on ad revenues than other media companies, such as CBS. Disney has its theme park business; Time Warner enjoys cable subscriber fee revenues for its cable channels and print subscription revenue for its magazines.

Media companies have been hit hard over the better part of six months from the troubling economic news, slowing consumer spending and a weak ad market.

Still, stock-market analysts worry that there could be a steeper hit coming from lower ad revenue that will affect virtually all major media companies in the coming months.

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