FCC relaxes media ownership rules

Despite intense pressure from both houses of Congress, the FCC agreed to relax media ownership rules and overturn a 32-year-old ban on owning a broadcast station and newspaper in the nation’s 20 largest markets, the AP reports.

In pushing through the new rule, Chairman Kevin Martin has routinely pointed to the changing media marketplace since the FCC first instituted the ban in 1975, specifically drawing attention to the explosion of the Internet and the widespread growth of cable TV.