Freedom Newspapers is polling its shareholders.

The Santa Ana-based publishing company, owner of the Orange County Register, 28 other daily newspapers and four television stations, has mailed questionnaires to shareholders of the closely held, family-run corporation to determine if they want to sell out to dissident Harry H. Hoiles for $108 a share, or $676 million for the two-thirds of the company that Hoiles does not already control. For the first time since he filed suit in 1982 to dissolve the company founded by his father, Hoiles offered to sell his shares to the company at the same price, or a total of $338 million.