Implementation of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 73 and 76</CFR> <DEPDOC>[MB Docket No. 25-72; FCC 25-16; FR ID 283395]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Implementation of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) seeks comment on the need for updates to its rules implementing the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeks to develop a record to help the Commission and the public better understand consumer complaints about loud commercials. The NPRM seeks input from consumers and industry on the extent to which the CALM Act rules have been effective in controlling and preventing loud commercials on programming provided by television broadcasters and pay TV providers. The Commission also asks about its authority to address loud commercials and the consistency of program volume on streaming platforms. Finally, the NPRM asks what actions the Commission, industry, or standards developers could take in this area to further minimize consumer harm. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before April 10, 2025; reply comments are due on or before April 25, 2025. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before May 12, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by MB Docket No. 25-72, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Federal Communications Commission's website: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> Contact the FCC to request reasonable accommodations (accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART, etc.) by email: <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or phone: 202-418-0530. For detailed instructions for submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. Send a copy of your comment on the proposed information collection to Cathy Williams, FCC, via email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> and to <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Evan Baranoff, <E T="03">Evan.Baranoff@fcc.gov,</E> of the Media Bureau, Policy Division, (202) 418-2120. Direct press inquiries to <E T="03">MediaRelations@fcc.gov.</E> For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act information collection requirements contained in this document, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Cathy Williams, Office of Managing Director, at (202) 418-2918 or <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), FCC 25-16, adopted on February 27, 2025, and released on February 28, 2025. The full text of this document is available electronically via the FCC's Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS) website at <E T="03"> https:// www.fcc.gov/edocs </E> (search using FCC number) or via the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs</E> (search using docket number). (Documents will be available electronically in ASCII, Microsoft Word, and/or Adobe Acrobat.) <E T="03">Initial Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document contains possible new or modified information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and OMB to comment on the information collection requirements contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. Public and agency comments are due May 12, 2025. <E T="03">Comments should address:</E> (a) whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Commission, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's burden estimates; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on the respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) way to further reduce the information collection burden on small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), the Commission seeks specific comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> 1. The NPRM invites comment on the need for updates to the Commission's rules implementing the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, Public Law 111-311. It has been over 10 years since the Commission has taken action in this area, and we seek input from consumers and industry on the extent to which these rules have been effective in controlling and preventing loud commercials on programming provided by television broadcasters and pay TV providers. 2. The CALM Act was enacted on December 15, 2010, in response to consumer complaints about loud television commercials. Among other things, the CALM Act directs the Commission to incorporate into its rules by reference and make mandatory a technical standard, developed by an industry standards development body, that is designed to prevent digital television commercial advertisements from being transmitted more loudly than the program material the commercials accompany. In 2011, the Commission adopted implementing rules that require television stations and multichannel video programming providers (MVPDs) to ensure that all commercials are transmitted to consumers at the appropriate loudness level in accordance with the industry standard mandated in the statute. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> This standard requires that the average loudness of a commercial not exceed the average loudness of the surrounding programming. The rules took effect on December 13, 2012, and were updated in 2014 to reflect minor changes in the technical standard. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  77 FR 40276 (July 9, 2012). As mandated by the statute, the Commission incorporated into its rules by reference and made mandatory the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) A/85 Recommended Practice (RP), which describes how the television industry can monitor and control the audio of digital television programming. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  79 FR 51107 (August 27, 2014). In 2021 ATSC issued a successor to A/85, correcting typographical errors in the 2013 document. Because the corrections did not impact the commercial loudness elements of A/85, the Commission made no update to its rules at that time. Later that year, the Media Bureau issued a public notice seeking comment on the effectiveness of the rules, but received a limited record in response. </FTNT> 3. Under the rules, any station or MVPD that is notified by the Commission of a pattern or trend of complaints must, within 30 days, perform a 24-hour spot check of the programming being transmitted at that time on the channel or program stream at issue, to verify ongoing compliance. For commercials they insert, stations and MVPDs will be deemed in compliance if they demonstrate that they use certain equipment in the ordinary course of business. For commercials inserted by programmers and third parties, the rules establish “safe harbors” based on certifications and periodic testing. 4. The Commission's CALM Act rules have been in effect for over 12 years. In the years immediately following their adoption, consumer complaints to the Commission dropped significantly, indicating real efforts on the part of industry to bring their stations and systems into compliance. Nevertheless, as noted above, in recent years the Commission has received thousands of complaints from viewers who remain frustrated by the loudness of television commercials. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Indeed, in 2024 the Commission saw a significant uptick in complaints about loud commercials on broadcast television, cable, and satellite. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> We therefore seek to develop a record to help the Commission and the public better understand remaining issues in this area. We seek comment on what measures could further support the purpose of the CALM Act to prevent the transmission of commercial advertisements more loudly than accompanying program material on television broadcast and MVPD channels. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Legislation was introduced in 2023 to modernize and expand the CALM Act, supporting the Commission's data that the loudness of commercials remains a source of consumer frustration. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Based on Commission data, in 2024 the Commission received at least 1,700 complaints referencing loud commercials that appear ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 50k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━