It's unusual and gives activists who worry about corporate concentration of media the willies, but a plan to join two of South Florida's biggest television network affiliates under one roof is legal and will probably win FCC approval, broadcast-law experts said Friday.

The Washington Post Co., which already owns WPLG-ABC 10, announced Friday that it's buying WTVJ-NBC 6 from NBC. The deal requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which Post Co. officials said they hoped to obtain by the end of the year.

And they probably will get it, say attorneys specializing in broadcast regulatory law, including several who work for anti-corporate activist groups. ''On its face, there's no obstacle to this one,'' said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, head of the Media Access Project in Washington.

From the dawn of television, ownership of more than one station in a single market was prohibited. But in 1998, the FCC changed its rules: A single company can own two stations as long as one of them is not among the market's top four, and if there are at least eight different owners in the market.

''In most cities, the top four stations are going to be the big English-language networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox,'' said Jessica Gonzalez, an attorney with the Washington-based Institute for Public Representation, which has challenged some corporate TV acquisitions in Florida. ``But in Miami, you've got those big Spanish-language stations. This new duopoly is troubling, especially since you have the Washington Post involved too, but I'm afraid it's legal. And I doubt there will be too much FCC scrutiny.''

WTVJ, the first television station in Florida -- it went on the air in 1949 -- for years was among the top four stations. But a disastrous ratings slump for NBC programming all over the country during the past four years, coupled with the growing audience for Spanish-language stations WLTV-Univisión 23 and WSCV-Telemundo 51, have dropped it all the way to sixth place.

''That's a very, very unusual situation you have there in Miami,'' said Mark Fratrik, a former National Association of Broadcasters economist who works for the management consultant firm BRIfn. ``That's pretty close to unique. Duopolies are fairly common -- there are between 80 and 90 of them around the country -- but there aren't more than a handful involving affiliates of the big four English-language networks.''

In fact, duopolies are nothing new to South Florida. Three exist right now: WFOR-CBS 4 and WBFS-MyNetwork 33; WLTV and WAMI-Telefutura 69; and WTVJ and WSCV, which will break up if this deal is completed.

''There are a lot of advantages on the cost side,'' said Shaun McDonald, who's general manager at WFOR and WBFS and has also run duopolies in New Orleans and Columbus, Ohio. ``You don't need as many people and you don't need as much equipment. Especially these days, with everybody converting to digital and high-definition -- you can buy the same equipment and use it for both stations.''

But, McDonald warned, station identities can blur in viewers' minds if they start looking too much alike. ''It will be interesting to see what they do with their news departments, if they keep them both or shut one down,'' he said.

Neither WPLG general manager Dave Boylan nor any Washington Post Co. official would talk about specific plans for the duopoly, except to say that WTVJ will keep showing NBC programming.

But Boylan's history may offer a clue: He presided over the creation of another big duopoly in Los Angeles in 2001, involving a Fox affiliate and another station that carried the programming of the now-defunct UPN network. Boylan kept independent news departments at each station, though he shuffled their late newscasts so they didn't go head-to-head at 10 p.m.

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