WASHINGTON, D.C. – While consumers scored a victory last year with a law preventing television commercials from being excessively louder than programming, some cable companies are trying to skirt responsibility for the volume of ads aired on their own channels. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), along with four other Senators, sent a letter to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week urging him and the Commission to enforce a new law he cosponsored to prevent excessively loud television commercials, especially those that are significantly louder than the programming that contains them.

“Over the years, I’ve heard from hundreds of Ohioans that wanted Congress to do something about excessively loud television commercials. That’s why passing a law to prevent these ads was such a victory for consumers,” Brown said. “The FCC shouldn’t allow cable companies to evade this law and the responsibility of ensuring that commercials are aired at a normal volume. I’m urging Chairman Genachowski to enforce the intent of this law and work with cable companies to prevent excessively loud TV ads.”

The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (“CALM”) Act requires the Federal Communications Commission to enforce a technical standard designed to prevent excessively loud television commercials by December 15, 2011. Since its passage, cable companies and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) have argued that they should not be held accountable for commercials that they themselves do not create or insert into the programming. The letter sent by Brown and his fellow senators encourages the FCC to enforce the intent of the new law, which is to apply volume standards to all commercials, regardless of the commercials’ creator.

The full text of the letter is below. In addition to Brown, the letter was signed by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), and Charles Schumer (D-NY).

Dear Chairman Genachowski,

Thank you for your efforts thus far to implement the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (“CALM”) Act, which was enacted into law on December 15, 2010 in order to end the pervasive presence of excessively loud commercial advertisements on television. As you know, consumers have long complained about loud commercials, and particularly commercials that are dramatically louder than the programming that contains them.

I write to emphasize my agreement with certain findings in your Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM”) dated May 27, 2011 with regard to the intent and scope of the statute. I introduced the CALM Act in the Senate, and saw it signed into law, with complete confidence that the Act would apply to all excessively loud commercials regardless of what audio systems certain TV broadcasters, cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”) used and whether certain commercials were or were not created or inserted into the programming by the station or MVPD.

The NPRM correctly notes that “[t]he statute . . . expressly applies to all stations/MVPDs regardless of the audio system they currently use,” and goes on to say that “[n]ot only would limiting the statute’s scope to stations/MVPDs that use AC-3 audio systems be inconsistent with the express language of the statute, we think such a reading would undermine the statute’s purpose.” The NPRM is also correct in noting that “[t]he statute expressly applies to commercials transmitted by a station/MVPD and makes no exception for commercials not inserted by the station/MVPD” and that “[n]othing in the statutory language or legislative history distinguishes between different sources of commercial content or suggests any intent to limit a station/MVPD’s responsibility only to those commercials ‘inserted’ by it.”

I urge you to continue to proceed through the implementation process on the view that, as stated in the NPRM, “[l]imiting regulations to only certain commercials would undermine the statute’s purpose.”

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