In a way, Dorothy Brunson can thank the Godfather of Soul for her status as the only African American woman to own a full-power TV station in the United States.

She bought her first media outlet -- the Baltimore radio station WEBB-AM -- in a bankruptcy proceeding where James Brown was forced to unload the station.

After acquiring two other radio stations, she sold all the properties to buy a TV station. Now as owner of WGTW-TV, Philadelphia, she runs an independent station that she built virtually from scratch.

The station is an underdog competing mostly with network-owned stations in a large market.

While WGTW is minority owned, Ms. Brunson said the station, which also reaches into New Jersey and Delaware, is not programmed at a minority audience. However, the station does have some programs targeting minorities, and its staff is racially mixed.

WGTW generated an estimated $7 million in 1997, just a fraction of what other stations in the market generate.

"I don't spend the kind of money they have; I don't have the kinds of stats that they have, and yet we make a very, very decent showing and do very well in terms of maximizing our effectiveness," Ms Brunson said. "Our promotions are as good as theirs, probably at one-fiftieth of the budget; our product is as good and clean and respectable as theirs, probably at one-hundredth of the budget."

And the station is growing enough to begin to produce its own programming for the first time.

This month, WGTW launches "Another View," a daily show that delves...