FCC adopts newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban and caps TV station ownership at 7 stations nationally

The Federal Communications Commission issued its newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule in 1975, barring a single company from owning both a daily newspaper and a broadcast station in the same market. The commission simultaneously capped national TV station ownership at 7 stations per company — 7 AM, 7 FM, and 7 TV — citing diversity of voices as a core public-interest obligation. The rule stood as the structural floor of broadcast ownership regulation for the next two decades.