The FCC is scheduled to decide June 2 whether to adjust media ownership rules, including a 1975 restriction on newspaper ownership of radio and television stations within the same market.
"We have finally taken this by the reins," Powell told newspaper executives attending the Newspaper Association of America convention. "It's difficult to maintain the rule in its current form."
Powell appeared as a guest of the Associated Press, which holds its annual meeting on the first full day of the convention.
Powell said cross-ownership could allow more efficient production, which in turn might spawn expanded programming. That would benefit both newspapers and the public, he said.
Powell used his address to highlight his belief that broadband technology will put consumers in greater control of the news information they seek.
Advances in broadband technology and the Internet continue to provide a wider variety of ways for people to obtain personalized information, Powell said. Federal policies regulating the industry need to adapt from existing rules designed around monopoly ownership of a limited telecommunications marketplace, he said.
"Innovation, more than anything else, will be the hallmark of communications policy for the next century," Powell said.
"Broadband demands broadminded public policy," he continued. "We must escape the regulated monopoly mentality that has been the center of policy on technology, and promote and drive the possible rather than getting counseled by the fears of change, or worse, the protection of what we have come to know. Just as industry needs venture capital to finance this migration, we need venture policy to govern it."
Powell's comments on cross ownership were met with approval from Dean Singleton, vice chairman and chief executive officer for MediaNews Group and the NAA's chairman.
"When the ban on cross ownership falls, what will rise is the opportunity to combine the immediacy of television and radio with the depths of newspapers, along with the interactivity and continued updates of the Web," Singleton said. "That works for almost all size newspapers. That's a very exciting proposition."
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