The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says the agency has received an influx of complaints over the years about television commercials airing louder than normal programming, despite a law in place that is meant to prevent exactly that.
Accordingly, the FCC will soon begin deliberating whether to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would float the idea of new rules and enforcement abilities that target loud commercials on broadcast and cable television and, possibly, on streaming media platforms.
In 2010, the U.S. Congress passed the Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, which required television broadcasters to maintain a consistent audio level across normal programming and commercials alike. The law was passed after some members of the public complained that broadcasters were making commercials louder than entertainment, news and sports programming in an effort to draw attention to them.
The law provided no specific penalties for broadcast networks that continued airing loud commercials; instead, it gave the FCC the ability to set their own penalties and enforce the law accordingly. The FCC gave broadcasters a one-year grace period before implementing the CALM Act by through their own regulations in 2012. Penalties are only enforced against a network if the agency receives a complaint from someone in the public and is able to sustain that complaint with evidence.
Over the years, broadcast networks have entered into consent decrees with the FCC following numerous complaints of loud commercials on their channels. But few television station owners have faced financial penalties over the practice, and the issue of loud commercials has since shifted to streaming video platforms, which are not regulated by the FCC.
Three years ago, several Democratic lawmakers introduced a new bill that sought to modernize the CALM Act by giving the FCC additional enforcement ammunition and by incorporating streaming video services into the law.
“Our bill is simple: the volume of commercials on streaming services cannot be louder than regular programming, as is the case with traditional TV, and the bill gives the FCC increased authority to investigate violations of the law by traditional TV operators,” Representative Anna Eshoo of California wrote in a statement.”
That bill did not advance beyond the 2022 Congressional session, and a similar effort to update the law failed two years ago — but, the spirit of the CALM Modernization Act lives on, with Carr saying it was time to reconsider the agency’s rules and enforcement abilities to reign in loud commercials across different platforms.
“Whereas those loud emergency alerts are life-saving tool, loud TV commercials are a frustrating headache,” Carr wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “You’re sitting there, chilling out, and then BOOM — some commercial breaks in at a high volume. I don’t like them, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. In fact, the FCC has recently seen an uptick in consumer complaints about excessively loud commercials.”
Carr referenced the original CALM Act passed by Congress in 2010, but made no mention of the legislative push to update it. Still, his comments suggested the Republican-led FCC and the efforts of several Democratic lawmakers three years ago had some common ground.
“We will consider a notice of proposed rulemaking to see if there are additional actions the commission could take today to make sure TV viewers aren’t inundated by exceedingly loud commercials,” Carr wrote.
If a NPRM is published, industry stakeholders and ordinary Americans alike will be given the opportunity to weigh in on the matter through a period of public comment before the agency votes on any new or additional rules.
