[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1084 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1084

    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.


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 13, 2009

Ms. Eshoo (for herself, Mr. Doyle, Mr. George Miller of California, Ms. 
 Sutton, Mr. Sires, Mr. Boucher, Mr. Brady of Pennsylvania, Mr. Bishop 
 of New York, Ms. Watson, Ms. Schwartz, Ms. Zoe Lofgren of California, 
  Mr. Thompson of California, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Hare, Mr. Honda, Mr. 
 Capuano, Ms. Speier, Mr. Gene Green of Texas, Mr. Dicks, Mr. Crowley, 
     Ms. Lee of California, and Ms. Loretta Sanchez of California) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                          Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 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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