As for the relaxation of the newspaper-broadcast rule, telecommunications lawyers said it could pave the way for Rupert Murdoch to win permanent waivers to control two television stations in New York, as well as The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.

In one 3-to-2 vote on Tuesday, Mr. Martin sided with the agency’s two other Republicans to relax the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules in the nation’s 20 largest markets. Under the new rule, a company can own both a newspaper and either a television or radio station in those markets as long as there remain at least eight other independent sources of news. If it is a television station, the rule requires that it cannot be one of the top four.

Mr. Martin said that the change was a modest, though vital step toward assisting the newspaper industry, which is struggling financially as advertising and readership migrates rapidly to the Internet. “We cannot ignore the fact the media marketplace is considerably different than when the media ownership rule was put in place more than 30 years ago,” he said.

In a second 3-to-2 vote, Mr. Martin joined with the two Democratic commissioners to impose a limit to prevent Comcast, which controls nearly 30 percent of the market, from getting larger. Mr. Martin has been critical of the cable television industry for raising rates faster than the rate of inflation and for failing to offer consumers enough lower-price choices in subscription packages.

In a series of dissents, the commissioners took issue with Mr. Martin’s assessments.

“In the final analysis,” said Michael J. Copps, a Democratic commissioner who has led a nationwide effort against relaxing the media ownership rules, “the real winners today are businesses that are in many cases quite healthy, and the real losers are going to be all of us who depend on the news media to learn what’s happening in our communities and to keep an eye on local government.”

Robert M. McDowell, a Republican commissioner, was sharply critical of the cable restrictions.

“The cap is out of date, is bad public policy and is not needed in today’s public market,” he said. He called the cable rule “archaic industrial policy” that would surely be struck down by an appeals court, as a similar rule was six years ago.