This year's survey was notable for another reason: 11 of the firms on last year's version have filed for bankruptcy protection, led by newspaper publishers. Among them was Freedom Communications, which ranks as the country's 61st-largest media firm in the survey, as the owner of California's Orange County Register sought bankruptcy protection last month. Not surprisingly, the newspaper sector showed a decline of more than 13% in revenue last year, marking the steepest drop among all media types, the AdAge survey found.

Sales in 2008 for the top 100 media companies rose just under 1 percent, marking the slowest revenue growth since 1991, AdAge says. Still, things are worse already in 2009, with revenue showing a 4.3% decline for the first six months.

Yet that's a slightly better than the drops reported by other media-tracking firms. TNS Media Intelligence says advertising spending during the first six months of 2009 tumbled 14.3%. (Newspaper ad sales were among the bottom performers there, too, falling 24% during the period, according to TNS.)

It's important to note, however, that the AdAge survey includes subscriptions from cable systems and satellite-TV operators, a generally steady revenue stream that's not tied to fluctuations in the ad market. So, with Comcast on top of the media heap, its unsolicited bid last week for a piece of General Electric Co.'s (GE) NBC Universal makes even more sense. While media companies dependent on advertising are losing ground, those like Comcast, with stable subscription fees, are able to parlay that into to bids for their troubled media brethren.