Newspapers make a conference call.

• Position: Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Media General Inc.'s newspaper ACC Week - Tar Heel Tattler

With three television stations and three major newspapers in prime Atlantic Coast Conference territory, Media General Inc. thinks it is in position to score with a newspaper aimed at ACC fans.

ACC Week, which published its first 44-page edition in August, is based in Winston-Salem, where Media General owns the Journal newspaper. Joe Doster, the Journal's president and publisher, expects the weekly to achieve a paid circulation of 100,000 within 18 months.

"There are 700,000 season-ticket holders for football alone in the ACC," Doster says. "We think anybody who's a season-ticket holder is enough of a fan that $50 a year isn't a big deal."

But other attempts to produce a conferencewide paper have flopped. "They were smaller people just getting into the business," says Tom Mickle, the ACC's assistant commissioner. Most schools already have publications aimed at fans, such as UNC's Carolina Blue.

Unlike previous efforts, Media General has the staying power to pull off this...