On December 13th, 2012, the rules of CALM went into effect, and the FCC began enforcing them. In its simplest terms, this means over-the-air (OTA) broadcasters, cable operators, satellite television providers, and multichannel video program distributors must ensure that commercials have the same average loudness as the programs they accompany.

Master Control racks at CCTV's new HD facilities in Beijing, featuring Linear Acoustic LA-5269 Dolby Digital/Plus Transcoders. Three LA-5269s are already on the air on CCTV-3, CCTV-5, and CCTV-8.
As the predominant state television broadcaster in mainland China, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) programs 24 channels accessible to more than 1 billion viewers.  Their new broadcast facilities were built to be "100% HD ready."

Feeling Worried? Or Feeling CALM?

At the time of this writing, it has been nearly a year since the CALM Act was signed into law and the date on which the rules of the CALM Act officially go into effect is getting closer.

Cool fact: Over 219 million Americans tuned in to enjoy the 2012 London Summer Games - making it the most watched event in US television history. Extra cool fact: Every second of the audio heard by those viewers was monitored through or processed by a Linear Acoustic product!