The Turnbull government has successfully passed its media laws bill by 31 votes to 27 in the Senate after making concessions to Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team
The key reforms in the package are about media ownership rules.
They were originally designed to stop any one media company growing too large and restricting the diversity of voices.
But especially in more recent years, big media companies such as Fairfax have lobbied the government to relax the laws as they struggle with falling ad revenue.
The reforms will remove the so-called 'two-out-of-three' rule, which prevented a media company from operating a TV station, radio station and a newspaper in the same market.
The rule is currently preventing some big potential mergers, such as Nine Entertainment (which owns a TV station) with Fairfax media (which owns newspapers such as The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, along with radio stations such as 2GB and 3AW).
The rule was also preventing a joint bid from Bruce Gordon and Lachlan Murdoch to purchase the troubled Ten Network.
The free-to-air channel has since been sold to American network CBS, but Mr Murdoch and Mr Gordon are challenging the sale in the NSW Supreme Court.
