[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3156 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







110th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 3156

    To require the Federal Communications Commission to prescribe a 
standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes 
               than the program material they accompany.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             June 18, 2008

  Mr. Wicker introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
   referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To require the Federal Communications Commission to prescribe a 
standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes 
               than the program material they accompany.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Commercial Advertisement Loudness 
Mitigation Act''.

SEC. 2. RULEMAKING ON LOUD COMMERCIALS REQUIRED.

    (a) Regulation Required.--Within one year after the date of 
enactment of this Act, the Federal Communications Commission shall 
prescribe pursuant to the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 151 et 
seq.) a regulation that provides, in connection with any video 
programming that is broadcast or that is distributed by any 
multichannel video programming distributor, that--
            (1) advertisements accompanying such video programming 
        shall not be excessively noisy or strident;
            (2) such advertisements shall not be presented at 
        modulation levels substantially higher than the program 
        material that such advertisements accompany; and
            (3) the average maximum loudness of such advertisements 
        shall not be substantially higher than the average maximum 
        loudness of the program material that such advertisements 
        accompany.
    (b) Definitions.--For purposes of this section, the terms ``video 
programming'' and ``multichannel video programming distributor'' have 
the meanings given such terms in section 602 of Communications Act of 
1934 (47 U.S.C. 522).
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