Lynn Claudy

While stations are preparing to order and install new equipment designed to eliminate dramatic shifts in volume between programs and commercials, they’re in a sort of limbo since the FCC hasn’t announced exactly what it will require stations, cable and satellite operators to do. But in advance of the commission’s Dec. 15 deadline to issue the regulations for the CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act, equipment manufacturers are busy and some station owners are moving forward to tackle the problems. In Part II next Thursday, TVNewsCheck checks in with some of the leading vendors of loudness monitoring and control solutions.

When it meets in Washington in two weeks, the Advanced Television Systems Committee board is expected to move forward with plans to develop a new standard for TV broadcasting in the next five to 10 years. It will enable TV stations to broadcast more programming, more reliably to more places and explore new business opportunities. For viewers, it may mean another traumatic transition similar to one leading up to the final June 2009 switch from analog to digital.

Reacting to last week’s Jessell At Large column, the head of the NAB’s Science and Technology department says broadcasters should be applauding NAB’s moves to absorb MSTV and expand its technology expertise and “not get misguidedly drawn into the realm of uneasiness that dominates the tone of…[Jessell’s] article.”

The trade association has a head hunter searching for an EVP of technology who will be its “principal technologist and technology policy strategist,” reporting directly to President Gordon Smith.