Next week, Mr. Martin is expected to formally propose that the newspaper and broadcast cross-ownership restriction be relaxed in the nation’s largest cities if the television station is not one of the largest in the community. He has told officials that he hopes to complete action on that rule in December.

Image Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, supports new regulations for the cable market. Credit... Kevin Wolf/Associated Press

The cable finding suggests that Mr. Martin is not approaching the media ownership debate with a uniform deregulatory approach — as his predecessor did — but is instead taking a more nuanced approach and intervening in one market, cable television, even as he tries to loosen the rules for other media conglomerates.

In the cable proceeding, senior commission officials said that this month the agency would announce as part of its annual report on the state of the video services market that it has broad new regulatory authority over the cable industry under the so-called 70/70 rule of the Cable Communications Act of 1984.

Under that provision, the agency may adopt rules necessary to promote “diversity of information sources” once the commission concludes that cable television is available to at least 70 percent of American households, and at least 70 percent of those households actually subscribe to a cable service.

Officials and consumer groups said that the 70/70 cable television finding would provide the legal basis for the commission to adopt rules in the coming weeks and months aimed at increasing programming and reducing rates for consumers.

The consumer groups and networks that are independent of the cable companies have long maintained there is no adequate process for the commission to sort complaints when a cable company refuses to carry programs.

The commission is preparing to take steps to make it less expensive for rivals of the largest cable conglomerates to buy their programs — so that, for instance, a satellite company would find it less expensive to buy programs by the Turner Broadcasting System, a unit of Time Warner.