FCC Proposes Changes to Its CALM Act Rule

On November 1, 2013 the FCC released a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) seeking comment on proposed changes to its Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act rules. The FNPRM proposes minor rule changes to incorporate the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s (ATSC) recently published A/85:2013 in the CALM Act rules.

The CALM Act was passed by Congress in December of 2010. In December of 2011, the FCC released a Report and Order adopting rules implementing the CALM Act and, as mandated by the statute, incorporated into its rules by reference and made mandatory the 2011 version of the ATSC A/85 RP. The rules describe how the television industry shall monitor and control the loudness level of digital TV programming. The rules took effect on December 13, 2012 and require digital TV broadcasters, digital cable operators, satellite TV providers and other digital MVPDs to ensure that the commercials they transmit to viewers comply with the A/85:2011 Recommended Practice.

The CALM Act mandates that the Commission’s rules incorporate by reference and make mandatory “any successor” to the RP. On March 12, 2013, the ATSC published a successor document to its 2011 RP, A/85:2013. The Successor RP applies an updated loudness measurement algorithm based on the ITU’s updated BS.1770 measurement algorithm, “BS.1770-3,” which employs “gating” that will exclude very quiet or silent passages of a commercial when calculating the average loudness of that commercial.

The FNPRM seeks comment on:

• A tentative conclusion by the FCC that the only substantive change raised by the Successor RP, as it relates to the rules, is the change to the measurement algorithm to conform to BS.1770-3.
  
• The costs and timing associated with upgrading existing equipment to comply with the Successor RP. The FCC has proposed a time period of one year (from the release date of a Report and Order in this proceeding) to implement any necessary equipment upgrades.
• Whether there are affected parties who have purchased equipment that is not easily upgradable or for which implementation of the Successor RP would be significantly burdensome for some other reason.
  
• Whether small TV stations and MVPDs, as a class, may need more time to implement the Successor RP.

The FCC states in the FNPRM that while this proceeding is pending, the Current RP incorporated into the rules in 2011 will continue to be mandatory until the proposed rule modifications incorporating A/85:2013 take effect. Except that the FCC has waived this rule as necessary to permit parties the option to follow the loudness measurement method contained in the Successor RP, rather than that in the Current RP, prior to the rule modifications taking effect.

The docket number of this proceeding is MB 11-93. Comments are due to the FCC on December 27, 2013, and reply comments are due on January 13, 2014. More information on the FCC CALM Act regulations is available here.

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The December 23, 2013 TV TechCheck is also available in an Adobe Acrobat file. Please click here to read the Adobe Acrobat version of TV TechCheck