When I heard the FCC finally amended its rules to allow a newspaper and television station in the same market to merge, I rejoiced at the prospect of how this could become a boon for ailing media.

But in today's story about the change, the Washington Post basically called convergence dead.

Newspaper companies fought hard for the rule change five years ago, but showed less interest in it this time because of changing market conditions in the television business. In the past, newspapers saw the high profits of television stations and envisioned significant cost-saving synergies between the properties. But that strategy was crippled by the rise of Internet video, which ate away at newspaper readers, television viewers, and the revenue of both mediums.

That analysis is short sighted. Just look around the Web at online video produced by newspapers and often what you'll find could benefit from some TV influence. The quality is often so low that it becomes embarrassing. What's worse is producing that crappy video probably required a large portion of the day for an entire group of people. Video is not within newspaper editors' core competency.

And while we spend a lot of time talking about online news video, the other important concern is the terrible quality of locally produced commercials. TV stations come with entire commercial production departments that could immediately help.

The Post is correct to point out that the online strategy affects the convergence partnership, but not that it's negative.

Newspaper Web sites draw significantly more users than TV, having had an advantage all this time on a predominantly text-based Internet. Buying a TV station would equate to buying not only video content but also television advertisers, who could be upsold to a popular Web site.

The Herald-Tribune where I work is one of the few places in the country that already owns a TV station. We got around the rules by creating a 24-hour cable news station, instead of one on the public airwaves. It's called SNN Channel 6 and it has long been integrated with the newsroom.

During the last year, changes to our workflow now mean the SNN staff posts its own video to HeraldTribune.com and the commercial production staff send all of the commercials, which are then scheduled by the online staff. And recently the advertising sales staff was reorganized to report to the same sales manager, positioning the Web site to benefit from commercial sales.

All of this is in response to predictions by Borrell and many others that the potential revenue generated by online video is about to grow exponentially. I wouldn't underestimate the importance of convergence in taking advantage of that growth.