A media receiving apparatus capable of preventing media from being positioned in an invalid display area or a program from being temporarily stopped, even if the vertical/horizontal ratio of the resolution of the display section is switched while a broadcast or streaming program is being displayed. In this apparatus there are a plurality of display sections D1 and D2 with different resolutions, and a display directive section (303) directs a display section to be set as active in accordance with the mode of use of the user. A layout information selection section (304) selects a layout corresponding to the resolution of the display section indicated by the display directive section (303) from layout information that includes layouts corresponding to display sections D1 and D2 distributed from a media distribution apparatus, and in accordance with the selected layout a media display control section (306) selects media distributed from the media distribution apparatus, performs conversion processing comprising enlargement or reduction, and displays media on the display section designated by the display directive section (303).