The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US is reviewing the cross-media ownership regulations that have so far prevented the ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same market.
The relaxation of these regulations would represent the most significant changes to US media ownership legislation in a recent years. However, the Commission is still at liberty to decide to leave the restrictions as they are at present.
Earlier in the year the FCC decided to relax the rules on television ownership, so that one of the four major television networks can now acquire the smaller, ’emerging’ networks, UPN and WB (see FCC Allows Major US TV Networks To Buy ‘Emerging’ Networks).