LOUDNESSEBU TECHNICAL REVIEW – 2010 Q3 1 / 9

This article describes one of the most fundamental changes in the history of audio in broadcasting: the change of the levelling paradigm from peak normalisation to loudness normalisation. This change is vital because of a problem that has become a major source of irritation for television and radio audiences around the world – that of the jump in audio levels at the breaks within programmes, between programmes and between channels. Loudness normalisation is the solution to counteract this problem. EBU Recommendation R 128 [1] establishes a predictable and well-defined method to measure the loudness1 level for news, sports, advertisements, drama, music, promotions, films etc., through-out the broadcast chain, and thereby helps professionals to create robust specifications for ingest, production, playout and distribution to a multitude of platforms. Four supporting documents have been created by the EBU to aid the audio industry to work with Rec. R 128. It is based entirely on open standards and aims to harmonise the way we produce and measure audio internationally. In addition to Pro-gramme Loudness, R 128 introduces two more audi