PORTLAND – Television station WMTW Channel 8 has been put up for sale by the family-run company that has owned the ABC affiliate for nearly 50 years.

Harron Capital of Frazer, Pa., is putting the station on the market because the Harron family wants to “go in a different direction,” David Kaufman, vice president of WMTW Broadcast Group, said Thursday.

He said the Harrons have run TV stations and cable TV systems around the country, but that WMTW is their last station and that they are in no rush to sell.

“The sale will occur if and when I locate a quality buyer who will continue to build on the station’s success and serve the community and station staff with distinction,” said Kaufman. “That could happen in a few months or in five years.”

The sale of WMTW would be part of a national trend over the last decade where small, family run TV companies are bought by large media conglomerates. Portland’s two other network affiliate stations, WGME Channel 13 and WCSH Channel 6, were locally owned until the 1990s.

WCSH is now owned by Gannett Co. of Virginia, which has 22 TV stations and 100 newspapers, including USA Today. WGME is one of 62 stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group of Baltimore.

Federal regulations prohibit one company from owning two major network affiliates in one city, so Gannett and Sinclair won’t be in the running to buy WMTW. But industry analysts say prospective buyers will likely be large companies with money to spend, and companies that own other ABC affiliates

“The trend overall is absolutely toward bigger companies consolidating, and fewer independent owners,” said Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst of the media industry for In-Stat/MDR, a market research company in Arizona. “A lot of the big companies already have [as many stations as permitted by law] so there are only five or six in a position to expand.”

WMTW went on the air Sept. 25, 1954, broadcasting from a tower on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. For years it has lagged WCSH and WGME in viewer ratings.