FCC Seeks Comment on Implementing the CALM Act

On May 27, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking comments on the how it should implement requirements set forth in the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. The CALM Act was signed into law on December 15, 2010, giving the FCC the authority to create rules intended to mitigate variations in volume level (loudness) between television programs and commercials.

Specifically the CALM Act requires that within 1 year after the date of enactment (i.e., December 15, 2011) the FCC must adopt rules incorporating by reference and making mandatory ATSC Recommended Practice A/85 (and any successor documents). The Act also requires that the rules adopted by the FCC take effect one year after they are adopted (i.e., no later than December 2012).

A/85 is titled Recommended Practice: Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television, and its most recent version was approved by the ATSC in May 25, 2011. This Recommended Practice provides guidance to broadcasters and creators of audio for ATSC high-definition (HD) or standard-definition (SD) television content, and recommends production, distribution and transmission practices needed to provide the highest quality audio soundtracks to the digital television audience. It focuses on audio measurement, production and postproduction monitoring techniques, and methods to effectively control loudness for content delivery or exchange. It recommends methods to effectively control program-to-interstitial loudness, including the use of the Dialog Normalization (dialnorm) metadata parameter to transparently set different content to a uniform loudness.

The CALM Act limits the FCC to focusing on those parts of the recommended practice that concern the transmission of commercial advertisements by a television broadcast station, cable operator or other multichannel video programming distributor. Finally, the Act states that, "Any broadcast television operator, cable operator, or other multichannel video programming distributor that installs, utilizes, and maintains in a commercially reasonable manner the equipment and associated software in compliance with the regulations issued by the FCC... shall be deemed to be in compliance with such regulations."

Among other things, the NPRM seeks comment on:

• Whether and how to identify the portions of the ATSC A/85 RP "concerning the transmission of commercial advertisements."
  
  
• A tentative conclusion that the CALM Act defines the scope and application of the new technical loudness standard as mandatory for all stations/MVPDs and not only those using AC-3 audio systems.
  
  
• What "commercially reasonable" means in the context of industry practice.
  
  
• With respect to the definition of "install", what measures the FCC should require stations/MVPDs to take to ensure that they have installed the correct equipment to enable them to take advantage of the provisions in the CALM Act.
  
  
• With respect to the definition of "utilize", a proposal to interpret this term to mean that mechanisms must be in place to properly measure the loudness of content and ensure that dialnorm metadata is encoded correctly before transmitting the content to the consumer.
  
  
• With respect to the definition of "maintain", an interpretation that maintenance in a "commercially reasonable manner" requires a station/MVPD to routinely perform quality control tests, such as spot checks to ensure that their equipment is properly detecting inappropriate loudness and to take swift corrective action to the extent problems are detected.

The Docket number for this NPRM is MB 11-93. Comments are due to the FCC on July 5, 2011 and reply comments are due July 18. The NPRM is available on the FCC website here. A/85:2011 is available on the ATSC Web page here.