[SOURCE: Radio Business Report/Television Business Report]
The CALM Act, originally proposed by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), has made it through the full Senate, by way of the Commerce Committee, and is that much closer to becoming the law of the land. It would require that commercial volume be equivalent to that of the programming in which it is embedded. Sen. Jay Rockefeller said it was all in the name of protecting consumers.
The full name of the Senate version of the bill is S. 2847, Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act.
Here is the Senate Commerce Committee description of the bill:
“The legislation would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt a regulation limiting the volume of television advertisements, consistent with existing recommended technical standards. The FCC would have to implement these regulations within one year of the CALM Act becoming law. This would effectively fix a problem that annoys many television viewers—when commercials are many times louder than the regular programming they are viewing.”
“The CALM Act also makes clear that the FCC may grant waivers to television broadcast stations, cable operators, or other multichannel video programming distributors that demonstrate complying with these rules would pose a hardship.”
Senate Commerce chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) commented, “As Chairman of the Commerce Committee, I have made it a top priority to protect American consumers. That is why I am pleased the Senate took action to pass the CALM Act. This common sense bill will make sure advertisers can’t just blast advertisements at consumers at unbearable volume levels.”
RBR-TVBR observation: Hey, we’re all for being protected. We’re just not sure that this is at the top of our list of worldly dangers that send us scurrying for our protective gear. Rockefeller said consumers are being protected from commercials blasted at “unbearable” volume levels. Unbearable? Really? If advertisers are forced to tone done the volume, perhaps our senators should be required to tone down the rhetoric.
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