House Schedules CALM Act Hearing

The Energy & Commerce Committee has made it official. As first reported in B&C, the committee has announced that it will hold a hearing Thursday (Oct. 8) to mark up the CALM (Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation) Act.

A markup is a hearing to consider amendments and, ideally, vote on passing the bill out of committee.

The CALM Act is the bill, introduced by California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo, that would require the FCC to adopt an industry-created standard capping the loudness of commercials and equalizing the volume between ads and other programming.

The broadcast, cable and ad industries are expected to be ready with the standard by November, according to a source.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.