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.
ATSC standards required by the CALM Act “should provide only technical guidance related to engineering issues,” said the law’s original sponsor, House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. The CALM Act requires that the volume of commercials be no louder than regular programming. “Issues related to compliance are squarely within the purview of the FCC,” Eshoo said in a letter Friday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. The standards should apply not only to TV broadcast stations but also to “cable, satellite and other multi-channel video distributors,” Eshoo said. “The legislation provides ample opportunity for small broadcast stations and cable operators to comply with the law."
"The worst thing” the FCC can do “is base its decisions on the broadcast technology of today” and not account for spectrum requirements of services to be available soon under version 2.0 of the Advanced TV Systems Committee’s standard, the ATSC said. The group is focusing on adopting that version and on starting the process of adopting version 3.0, it said in a filing posted Thursday to docket 10-235 (http://xrl.us/bk3jek). The group is working on standards for 3D broadcasts and non-real-time services, executives of ATSC and equipment maker Harris Corp. told an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell. The FCC separately is seeking comment on an ATSC standard incorporated in legislation to lower the volume of TV ads (CD July 28 p23).
A low-power TV (LPTV) operator is again seeking FCC authority to test an alternate broadcast transmission system that would let stations offer broadband service alongside traditional broadcast content. Portland, Ore.-based WatchTV filed an amended application “to evaluate new digital television technology” with the FCC this week, five months after the FCC Media Bureau denied the station’s last request to test the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based system (CD Feb 11 p12). WatchTV’s March application for review of that denial remains pending, it said.
The Advanced TV Systems Committee released an update to its recommended practice for keeping the volume of TV ads not much louder than programming they appear within, the FCC said in a public notice (http://xrl.us/bk3ced). The Media Bureau had extended a reply comment deadline on implementation of legislation that uses ATSC A/85 (CD July 20 p15). The newly released Annex K of the recommended practice deals with how systems that don’t use a certain type of audio codec can tamp down commercials’ volume.
The FCC delayed by 11 days to Aug. 1 the deadline for replies on a rulemaking notice on the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act for subscription-video providers and TV stations to tamp down ads’ volume. A Media Bureau order (http://xrl.us/bk2imb) agreed with the Advanced TV Systems Committee, which sought the extension (CD July 19 p16), that more time will let all parties review and comment on a “successor document” to an ATSC recommended practice that’s part of the legislation.
The Advanced TV Systems Committee wants an 11-day delay for reply comments on FCC implementation of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. The ATSC wants until Aug. 1 for replies in docket 11-93 because a Thursday board meeting of the group considered the status of an annex to the A/85 recommended practice that’s part of the CALM Act. Annex K will be on the group’s website July 26, ATSC said in a filing posted Friday to the docket (http://xrl.us/bk2fbe). The annex addresses how to keep the volume on ads not much louder than the programming they follow for pay-TV providers that don’t use the AC-3 audio system, the ATSC said. AT&T is among the companies that don’t use AC-3, on which A/85 is based (CD July 12 p6).
The FCC should enact narrower rules on keeping a lid on the volume of TV ads than what it proposed, all types of multichannel video programming distributors and TV stations said. They said the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act is more limited in scope than an FCC rulemaking notice on last year’s legislation. The notice said “we also interpret the statutory language ’the transmission of commercial advertisements’ to apply to all such transmissions by stations/MVPDs.” Instead, the act is meant to apply only to ads originated by broadcasters and providers of cable, DBS and telco-TV, those entities said in comments posted Monday in docket 11-93. Even before the rulemaking was released in May, the commission was lobbied by industry to adopt that interpretation (CD May 26 p7).
Spectrum reallocation was among the issues NAB directors discussed at a board meeting earlier this week, including legislation (S-911) that the Senate Commerce Committee approved Wednesday (CD June 9 p4), the association said. Bills to curb “rogue websites” also were discussed at the gathering, which also touched on retransmission consent and future ATSC standards, the NAB said. It said directors also “had a lengthy discussion on prioritizing key NAB objectives” to sustain terrestrial radio.
The FCC should waive a requirement that retail cable set-top boxes include an analog tuner for its new device that TiVo called Premiere Elite and it plans to sell, the company said in a waiver request this week. TiVo said it’s taking orders for a different version of the device called the Premiere Q from cable operators who will begin deploying it later this year. It wants to sell the Elite box at retail with a larger hard drive, and for that it will need a waiver of the commission’s “Digital Cable Ready” (DCR) certification, marketing and labeling rules, to license CableLabs’ CableCARD technology, it said. Under those rules, such one-way cable products can’t be certified as digital cable-ready without including an analog tuner.