Both Mtpolitics.net and City Lights Daily are weighing in this morning on the shutting down of news operations at KSVI and Fox 4 and the sale of KULR-8. The story had special significance for me, since this not-quite-fledgling-but-still-struggling news operation just completed its sixth year. I'm a natural rooter for the underdog -- it was a real challenge for me during the Iraq War to remember that I was for the side that was winning -- so I felt some sympathy for the two freshmen news operations.

But as City Lights points out, they did some appalling things. The early tilt to the teachers' side during the strike may have been a fatal error. Despite all the money the stations spent, the broadcasts retained an amateurish feel. And the stations' reporters made no friends among their colleagues by their perceived pushiness and poor judgment.

Being liked can be overrated for news media: I hear nearly every day from people who say they hate the Gazette, but that doesn't stop Lee Enterprises from pumping millions of dollars out of the local economy every year. Unfortunately, KSVI and Fox 4 combined an aggressive news stance with a management style that was a nasty combination of arrogance and ineptitude. When people neither like nor respect you, you are in trouble.

TV stations change owners every couple of years these days, so the larger implications of this story are difficult to ferret out. But note this: Evening Post Publishing Co. out of South Carolina, which owns KTVQ (Channel 2) in Billings, also owns stations in Kalispell, Butte, Missoula, Great Falls and Bozeman. Max Media, out of Virginia Beach, Va., which just bought KULR-8, also owns stations in Great Falls, Missoula, Kalispell, Butte and Bozeman. The purchase of a second Great Falls station, announced at the same time as the KULR-8 buy, violates Federal Communications Commission rules, but Max Media's Gene Loving said the company "is pursuing a strategy that will meet the Commissions [sic] ownership rules." I wonder if that strategy involves campaign contributions to prominent Republican candidates?

In announcing the decision to sell KULR-8, Wooster Republican Printing Co. Chairman Robert C. Dix said "it made business sense to exit what is a rapidly consolidating industry." Do I detect convergence coming on?

Of course, I have noted often before that two newspaper companies, Gannett and Lee Enterprises, control 80 percent of Montana's daily newspaper circulation. Similar patterns prevail in most other Western states, and as this graph shows, it's getting worse.

At a personal level, the closing of the two news operations was another painful reminder of just how tough it is to go up against entrenched local media. KSVI and Fox 4 spent millions and captured a 3 percent share. I've worked at The Outpost day and night for six years and have barely made a dent in the print market. The big boys undercut us on ad rates, steal our best ideas and ignore us in public. They hold a lot of cards.

Still, we have outlasted a lot of much fancier operations: not just the two news stations, but George, Talk and Content magazines -- all big, glossy launches -- and much more modest Montana efforts for weekly newspapers in Great Falls, Whitefish and Livingston. If it were just about money, we would be gone, too. But as the Missoula report linked here yesterday points out, major Montana media just aren't doing the job. They're raking in big profits -- far greater than national averages -- while keeping staffs small, cutting jobs and scanting coverage. People bitch about it every day, but getting them to actually do something about it is almost insanely difficult. Now heading into year seven, we're trying.