Broader FCC CALM Act Implementation Sought by Eshoo, Consumers Union
Legislation to keep down the volume of TV ads applies to all spots on TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors, not just what broadcasters and MVPDs originate, the bill’s sponsor and a nonprofit group told us Tuesday. Last year’s Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act ought not to be interpreted by the FCC as having such a wide exemption that the industries it’s targeted to aren’t responsible for all ads they carry, said the office of Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. It pointed to replies from Consumers Union, which made that point.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Cable, DBS and telco-TV providers continued to contend in replies in docket 11-93 (http://xrl.us/bk3xr2) that the legislation applies to ads they insert or originate (CD July 12 p6). They said the commission’s rulemaking notice on implementing the act proposed much wider authority than Congress allowed over keeping the volume on commercials not much louder than the programming they air within. Initial comments say the rulemaking interprets the safe harbor provision of the legislation “too narrowly,” NAB said (http://xrl.us/bk3xse). It disagreed with the American Cable Association, DirecTV and NCTA that MVPDs are responsible only for ads they insert. The NAB agreed with Verizon that pay-TV providers are responsible for ads if they change the bitstream. The head of the group whose standards are codified in the CALM Act told us that its update deals with the type of audio systems used by DBS and telco TV.
The act was written to apply to all TV programming, not just what MVPDs and TV stations originate themselves, said Eshoo’s office. That always was the intent of the legislation, the office said. Under Eshoo’s interpretation, the legislation covers programming transmitted by any TV station or subscription-video provider. Eshoo wrote the FCC Friday (CD Aug 2 p15) about the legislation, which she championed in Congress. “It was always the legislation’s intent that the standard apply not just to television broadcast stations, but cable, satellite and other multi-channel video distributors,” she wrote (http://xrl.us/bk3xr4).
The letter may hold a lot of sway at the FCC, said Consumers Union Policy Counsel Parul Desai. “When you have the legislator that sponsored and was a lead in pushing through the piece of legislation” write the agency, “it does have a great deal of weight,” she said. “We don’t want the safe harbor to be interpreted in a way so that no one’s accountable if the volume of a commercial is louder than the statute allows.” The NAB “agrees at a general level with the Commission’s tentative conclusion that a station is responsible for commercials that are transmitted by the station, including commercials that are included in programming that the station receives from networks, syndicated programming providers, and other third parties,” Consumers Union said (http://xrl.us/bk3xrq), citing from the association’s original comments. NAB’s reply said parts of the rulemaking “go beyond the scope of the Commission’s statutory authority."
The Advanced TV Standards Committee’s A/85 means MVPDs must pass along the correct metadata from programmers on volume levels, Verizon said. Such companies must set volume levels to the extent MVPDs insert ads or encode or re-encode others’ spots, the telco said (http://xrl.us/bk3xsx). “While it may be technically possible to measure and adjust the loudness levels of programming at the distribution end of the video chain, as [some] commenters suggest, doing so is not an efficient or effective approach to addressing loudness concerns,” Verizon said. “Nothing in the A/85 Recommended Practice suggests an obligation on the part of distributors to actively monitor and correct audio levels in this manner, and the CALM Act consequently does not provide the Commission with authority to impose one."
"Congress intentionally narrowed the focus of the agency’s role,” the NCTA said (http://xrl.us/bk3xtu). The legislation “makes cable operators responsible for the compliance of commercials that operators insert into network programming,” the group said: Such companies aren’t on the hook for “for compliance by program networks for commercials the networks insert, nor are they required to adjust the dialnorm value of network-supplied material.” DirecTV believes “the CALM Act’s carefully circumscribed mandate does not impose responsibility upon those that pass through commercials in a programming stream received from others,” the company said (http://xrl.us/bk3xug).
A new addition to A/85 for systems that don’t use AC-3 codecs means the recommended practices cover all ways audio is compressed by MVPDs, said ATSC President Mark Richer. “The CALM Act requires the commission to adopt any successor documents that we develop,” he noted. “I think part of what the commission is doing in this process is to set the rules for whatever is the most up-to-date version of A/85.”