The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (/) (CALM Act) requires the

U.S. Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

to bar the audio of

TV commercial A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

s from being broadcast louder than the

TV program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

material they accompany by requiring all "multichannel video programming" distributors to implement the "Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television" issued by the international industry group

Advanced Television Systems Committee The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is an international nonprofit organization developing technical standards for digital terrestrial television and data broadcasting. ATSC's 120-plus member organizations represent the broadcast, ...

. The final bill was passed on September 29, 2010. No specific penalties are given; those are to be set by the FCC in its regulations. A TV broadcaster or distributor is "in compliance" if it installs and uses suitable equipment and software. Unlike some FCC regulations, cable system operators are subject to the rule in addition to broadcast stations. After issuing regulations, the FCC began enforcing those regulations on December 13, 2012, after a one-year

grace period A grace period is a period immediately after the deadline for an obligation during which a late fee, or other action that would have been taken as a result of failing to meet the deadline, is waived provided that the obligation is satisfied durin ...

History

The bill was the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

companion to proposed legislation in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

by Representative

Anna Eshoo Anna A. Eshoo ( ; née Georges; born December 13, 1942) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from . She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 14th district from 1993 to 2013, is based in Silico ...

(D-Calif), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. She wrote the bill after a loud commercial interrupted a family dinner. After asking her brother-in-law to turn down the volume, he allegedly said, "Well, you’re the congresswoman. Why don’t you do something about it?". According to Eshoo, no one turned her down when she looked for supporters to the bill, and it passed the Communications Subcommittee. The technical requirements for measuring loudness were taken entirely from a formerly voluntary "recommended practice" issued by the

(ATSC) on November 4, 2009. Eshoo told ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' that legislation to mitigate the volume of commercials on TV was among the most popular pieces of legislation she has sponsored in her 18 years in Congress. Prior to adjourning for the midterm recess, the United States Senate unanimously passed the bill on September 30, 2010. Before it was signed into law in December, minor differences between the two versions had to be worked out when Congress returned to Washington after the November 2 election. The reconciled bill was signed into law by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

on December 15, 2010, as Public Law 111-311. On May 27, 2011, the FCC released a

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is a public notice that is issued by law when an independent agency of the US government wishes to add, remove, or change a rule or regulation as part of the rulemaking process. The notice is an important ...

(NPRM), Media Bureau (MB) Docket 11-93, to implement the CALM Act. Twelve parties filed comments, which are now available in the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). The FCC adopted its rules on December 13, 2011, and they took effect on December 13, 2012. Television viewers are asked to report loud commercials that violate this bill to the FCC.

References

External links

*
FCC's Loud Commercials Page
*
ATSC Recommended Practice A/85 – Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television
*
FCC Encyclopedia: Loud Commercials and the CALM Act
* * * *{{cite web , url=http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3343.pdf , title=EBU TECH Doc 3343 v.2 - Practical guidelines for Production and Implementation in accordance with EBU R 128. , publisher=EBU * Broadcast law United States federal communications legislation *