Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on TV Tech sister brand Radio World.

In my February Radio World article “Thoughts on AI and the Law,” I suggested that every station using artificial intelligence should adopt a policy addressing AI use disclosure, consent and compensation, and should obtain certifications from programmers and advertisers concerning their use of AI.

California’s recent legislation — and the rapid spread of similar laws around the country — makes that recommendation more urgent.

That the industry is moving forward with AI is inescapable. However, broadcasters must be careful and open about its use and cannot simply treat it as just another cost-saving production tool. It must be recognized as an issue that can impact your reputation for honesty, and compliance with political broadcast regulations.

California has addressed these issues perhaps more comprehensively than any other state and serves as a good model for broadcasters nationwide, although many other states appear to be following the same path.

California’s Framework
In 2026, the state created a multi-level legal structure that affects many aspects of AI use by broadcasters.

Its regulations address a variety of issues, including synthetic-content origin and changes in its use, known as “provenance,” training, frontier-model safety, mitigating advanced AI risks, privacy and employment discrimination.

Effective in August, the California AI Transparency Act, or CAITA, requires producers of publicly accessible generative-AI with more than 1 million monthly users or visitors to provide a free public detection tool and to embed disclosures in AI-generated images and video and audio content that permanently includes the content’s origin and history.

The law reaches beyond AI platforms. Beginning in 2028, manufacturers of equipment used by broadcasters, such as cameras, mobile phones and microphones, among other things, must automatically embed origin and creation information (called “latent disclosures”) into the recorded content.

In addition to CAITA, California has enacted several statutes and regulations that touch on AI and are now in effect. These address a myriad of issues, including training requirements, safety risk assessments, critical-incident reporting, whistleblower protection and AI-assisted employment decisions.

While most individual stations will not be regulated as frontier-model developers or covered GenAI providers, they need to be aware that these laws affect the tools they buy and that the provenance information (where an object, data or document comes from and how it has changed over time) attached to the AI tools they may use.

Many observers believe that California’s AI laws may influence laws in other states and even, potentially, federal or industry standards.

California Political
With campaign season upon us, it is important to note that California has already adopted disclosure requirements for political ads with AI.

The rule applies to California political committees that create, originally publish or originally distribute qualifying political advertisements. Any advertisements that contain an image, audio, video or other media that was entirely created by AI, and would falsely appear authentic to a reasonable person or was materially altered by AI in a way that would give a reasonable person a fundamentally different understanding of the material, must include, in a clear and conspicuous manner, the following statement: “Ad generated or substantially altered using artificial intelligence.”

This disclosure applies to radio and television broadcast ads that contain AI.

For radio, a political spot containing a cloned candidate voice, a fabricated exchange or other qualifying synthetic audio must carry a spoken disclosure. A separate requirement applies to television and online video content governing how the required AI disclosure must be placed and appear.

These disclosure requirements are imposed primarily on the political committee rather than a station that runs it, but stations should be knowledgeable and be certain to inquire of the producer or distributor whether AI was used, so that the broadcaster does not find itself inadvertently airing unlawful content or damaging its credibility.

Idea Gone National
While California is an important example to study, it is far from alone in regulating AI use in political communications.

Thirty-one states have enacted laws regulating the use of deepfakes in political and election communications, according to tracking from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Most state laws include disclosure requirements similar to California. Minnesota and Texas prohibit the publication of political deepfakes a certain number of days prior to an election. Maryland has no time limit and instead prohibits deceptive deepfakes related to the election year-round.

The other 28 states require disclosures on the media, similar to the existing requirement to disclose who paid for a political ad, the AI disclosure requires the ad to state if it contains a deepfake.

Colorado and Utah require additional disclosures in the metadata — descriptive information about a file’s creator, when the file was created and when the file was edited. Some provide civil remedies, while others carry criminal penalties.

This developing regulatory patchwork presents a practical problem for station groups and political buyers. A spot prepared for national or regional distribution may comply with one state’s laws, but not another. The required words, placement and duration may differ. So may the definitions of “AI-generated,” “synthetic media,” “deepfake” and “material alteration.”

Broadcasters therefore should no longer accept a general representation that a political advertisement is “legally compliant.” The representation should address the states and platforms in which the spot will run and should specifically identify whether AI was used to create or materially alter any voice, image or video.

The Section 315 Problem
Political broadcasting law makes compliance with new AI regulations even more complicated for broadcasters.

They retain discretion and can censor noncandidate issue, independent-expenditure and ballot-measure advertisements and can demand corrections. However, a legally qualified candidate’s “use” presents a different problem since the Communications Act prohibits a station from censoring a candidate use.

The Communications Act states clearly at § 312(a)(7) that all legally qualified and bona fide write-in candidates for federal elective office are to have “reasonable access” to broadcast facilities. Those federal requirements do not fit neatly with state laws requiring specified words or visual elements in AI-generated political advertising as the broadcaster is prohibited from censoring the ad and must run them for a candidate for federal elective office provided they contain a “use” by the candidate.

A “use” is defined as any positive use of a candidate’s voice or picture in a context not otherwise exempt under Section 315 of the Communications Act. Thus, any program or commercial that identifies the candidate by voice or picture in a positive way and is not a bona fide newscast, bona fide news interview, bona fide news documentary or on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news event, cannot be censored by the broadcaster. As a result, the broadcaster is provided immunity from liability for the content of the ad.

However, it cannot be assumed that Section 315 automatically disposes of every question involving state law or station liability. Therefore, to the extent possible, the safest course is prevention. Ask the whether AI was used when the order is placed, explain the applicable disclosure requirements to the buyer and ask that the candidate or committee deliver a compliant spot.

The FCC considered a federal solution in 2024. In MB Docket No. 24-211, the commission released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that asked whether the FCC should increase transparency in political ads by having political advertisers indicate if AI is being used in the advertisement and make on-air disclosures of AI use. It does not propose the prohibition of such content, only disclosing the use of AI within political ads. It further proposed to require broadcasters and certain other video and audio distributors to inquire whether political advertising contained AI-generated content, make an on-air disclosures and place a corresponding notice in their online political file.

The FCC explained it was attempting to address consumers’ concerns that AI-generated content was leading to a rising tide of disinformation, while also bringing uniformity to the patchwork of state laws and greater transparency in our elections.

The docket is still active with a list of filed comments 49 pages long, but the FCC has not yet acted. So, for now, broadcasters must continue to comply with state-by-state requirements as well as the established FCC sponsorship identification and political broadcasting rules.

A Broader Risk
While the focus is on political advertising in election years, there is a longer-term regulatory risk.

AI-generated voices can duplicate the authentic voices of real people, including a station personality, public official, celebrity or ordinary caller. It can “hallucinate” an apparently authentic interview, eyewitness account, endorsement or news clips. This can lead to increased liability for stations that are using AI to help generate content.

Existing law already reaches much of this conduct. Defamation, false light, the right of publicity, copyright, fraud, deceptive-advertising law and contract rights do not disappear merely because an AI model produced the content. A disclosure that the production of a segment used AI will not cure a defamatory statement, an unauthorized voice clone or a fabricated emergency announcement.

Stations should mandate human editorial review for news, elections, weather emergencies, health information, public safety and any content purporting to quote from or depict a real person. An “AI-assisted” label cannot become a substitute for human verification of factual statements.

The same caution towards AI use applies to entertainment and promotional programming. A synthetic host may be efficient, but the station must determine whether it has the right to reproduce the voice or persona on which the host is based.

Talent agreements should expressly address training, cloning, reuse, derivative voices, post-employment use and compensation. The SAG-AFTRA principles of consent, disclosure and appropriate compensation remain a sound guide, even when a particular employee or contractor is not covered by a collective bargaining agreement.

Stations should also examine syndicated programs, barter programming, paid interviews, commercials and network feeds for AI use. A station often will not know whether outside material was produced using AI unless it asks. Programmer and advertiser agreements should require disclosure of material AI use and representations that all necessary rights and consents were obtained.

Digital Distribution Changes the Analysis
Broadcasters should resist the temptation to treat their website, app, podcast, streaming channel, connected-TV product and social-media accounts merely as extensions of the over-the-air station. They may be governed differently under relevant law.

As noted above, since Aug. 2, 2026, CAITA has required certain very large providers of publicly accessible generative-AI systems to provide detection tools and content-provenance disclosures. Most local stations that use third-party AI services will not be covered by these requirements, but the analysis could change if a media company develops, substantially modifies or publicly offers its own generative-AI service.

Even where CAITA does not regulate the station directly, it offers broadcasters a new resource to verify compliance. Newsrooms can use provider detection tools and examine provenance information when evaluating suspicious audio, photographs or video. Stations also should preserve — rather than strip — standards-compliant metadata and digital signatures as material moves through editing, traffic, web-publishing and social-media systems.

The 2027 CAITA very large-platform requirements will make that preservation practice even more important for a station group whose digital operation could satisfy the statutory platform thresholds.

California’s Training Data Transparency Act only applies to developers that make generative-AI systems publicly available. A broadcaster that merely uses a commercial AI service ordinarily is a customer, not the developer. A broadcaster that trains and releases a public model using its news archive, announcer voices, photographs or programming may be in a very different position. It also must determine whether it has the rights necessary to use that material for training.

Digital operations raise privacy questions as well. Station apps and websites may collect personal identifiers, location information, listening histories, contest data and advertising profiles. California’s privacy rules now address certain automated decision-making and risk assessments. AI used for targeted advertising, audience profiling, hiring or other consequential decisions can therefore create obligations that ordinary over-the-air broadcasting does not.

A Policy for 2026
Given the expanding state-law patchwork, it is essential that each station have a written AI policy in place. At a minimum, each station should:

• Require political buyers and outside programmers to identify AI-generated or materially AI-altered content in writing;
• Require each buyer to certify compliance with every applicable state disclosure law;
• Route candidate uses that do not comply with AI disclosure requirements to counsel rather than editing material at the station to attempt to comply;
• Require human review of news, emergency, election, health and public-safety content;
• Prohibit unauthorized cloning of employee, candidate, celebrity or other persons voices or likenesses;
• Preserve content credentials, watermarks and provenance metadata rather than stripping them;
• Limit the entry of confidential station, employee, advertiser and source information into public AI systems;
• Address ownership, consent, compensation and post-employment use in talent and vendor agreements, and
• Include separate policy provisions that apply to broadcast, streaming, websites, apps, podcasts and social media.

California’s most important message is not the wording of one disclaimer. It is that broadcasters are entering an era in which they will be expected to know — or at least to ask — whether the voices and information they distribute are real.

AI can help broadcasters remain efficient, competitive and creative. But broadcast’s most valuable asset has never been its ability to generate more content at lower cost. It is the audience’s belief that the station knows and serves its community and can be trusted. Any AI policy should begin there.

This column is provided for general information purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal advice pertaining to any specific factual situation. Legal decisions should be made only after proper consultation with a legal professional of your choosing.

Read more broadcast law columns from Gregg Skall.

LOS ANGELES—California Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed the Community NEWS Act, a bill incentivizing newsrooms to hire and retain journalists.

The bill, supported by the SAG-AFTRA union, offers qualified news organizations a refundable employment tax credit of $20,000 for each of the first five full-time journalists hired and $15,000 for each additional full-time journalist hired, in addition to $7,500 for part-time journalists and a stackable $15,000 credit for new hires.

“Governor Newsom’s signing of the Community NEWS Act is a huge win for the quality journalism needed to build a healthy, informed society,” said SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin. “Thank you Gov. Newsom, Assemblymember Chris Ward and AB 2222’s allies in the California Legislature for making the policy changes necessary to ensure continued access to the news and information that keeps our democracy thriving.”

Passage comes more than a year after Congress approved the Rescissions Act of 2025, which eliminated $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a longstanding source of grants for local PBS and NPR affiliates. These cuts have prompted staffing reductions and programming changes at stations across the country, leaving many to explore alternative funding strategies.

According to the 2026 Local Journalist Index, local journalist employment has fallen more than 80% since 2002.

Supporters of the act have argued that tax credits could help slow the decline of local news coverage by making it more economically viable for outlets of all sizes to employ professional reporters and storytellers. Vermont, Illinois, New York and New Mexico have incentivized support for local news.

More information is available on Newsom’s website and the SAG-AFTRA website.

Video-streaming services delivering content to the state of California will soon be required to change the way they handle advertising to alleviate one of viewers’ biggest annoyances: Loud commercials. Thanks to Senate Bill 576, signed into law in October 2025 and taking effect on July 1, 2026, commercials can no longer be noticeably louder than the surrounding program.

Broadcast and cable television providers have been adhering to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act—better known as the CALM Act —since it was signed into law in 2010 to address this same issue, but it has not applied to streaming services.

The new legislation closes that gap, requiring streaming platforms to follow the same practices outlined in CALM, which itself is based on the recommended practices outlined in ATSC A/85, ensuring that ads are delivered at the same volume as the rest of the program content.

Are You Being Served?
To understand how this impacts streaming services, it helps to look at how ads are actually delivered on these platforms. The two main approaches are client-side ad insertion (CSID) and server-side ad insertion (SSID).

Client-side means the ads are added into the stream by the app or device itself. CSID is flexible and allows for targeted ads, but controlling levels is challenging, as every device handles playback differently.

Server-side, on the other hand, stitches ads into the stream before it ever reaches the viewer. SSID behaves more predictably and is often preferred as it helps counter ad blockers, but it introduces its own challenges since different vendors use different encoding pipelines, which can result in inconsistent loudness.

Streaming providers employ these models in different ways. National broadcasters like NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox already comply with the CALM Act for their traditional broadcasts, so extending those practices to their streaming apps is a natural next step.

Major streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video are also affected. Netflix recently introduced an ad-supported tier, Hulu and Disney+ lean heavily on server-side insertion, and Amazon Prime’s hybrid model mixes subscription and ad-supported content.

Local broadcasters face a unique challenge, as they often depend on third-party server-side ad insertion vendors for their streams, meaning they will need to ensure those partners are meeting California’s new requirements.

The biggest impact may be felt by FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television Services) channels like Pluto TV, Tubi, and Freevee. These platforms rely almost entirely on server-side ad insertion, pulling ads from a variety of suppliers, making them especially vulnerable to loudness inconsistencies.

Video-on-demand providers face their own challenges, as many of them use client-side ad insertion that requires normalization at the device level. This approach makes consistent loudness more difficult and requires VOD platforms to ensure loudness metadata is included and preserved so that the playback device can adjust levels accordingly.

Overcoming Technical Challenges
The technical hurdles to comply with this new regulation are significant. Different server-side ad insertion providers use different encoding methods, which means ads can arrive with varying loudness levels. Ads themselves often come from multiple sources, each mastered to different standards.

On top of that, playback devices—from smart TVs to mobile phones—interpret audio differently, which makes it even harder to guarantee a consistent experience. Content created before the legislation was enacted adds another wrinkle, since it may not meet modern loudness standards and would need to be reprocessed.

So how do streaming platforms tackle this? The first step is becoming familiar with ATSC A/85 recommended practices, which guide CALM compliance and, in turn, adherence to the new streaming regulations. Streaming providers will need to integrate file-based and, in some cases, real-time processing and loudness control into their server-side commercial insertion workflow, just as they currently do for their primary programming.

For client-side insertion, ensuring that loudness metadata is included and maintained is a promising option. Measuring loudness at ingest (to determine the need for corrective measures) and downstream (as a final QC step before distribution) using the latest iteration of ITU-R BS.1770 is critically important.

California’s new law is a big step toward making streaming feel more polished and viewer-friendly. For national broadcasters, it’s an extension of practices they already follow. For FAST channels and VOD providers, it’s a wake-up call to tighten up their workflows.

The challenges are real, but the solutions are within reach. By adhering to established loudness measurement, enforcing metadata-driven normalization, and holding vendors accountable, streaming platforms can not only comply with the law but also deliver a smoother, more enjoyable experience for viewers.

The California State Legislature has passed a new law that extends federal TV-commercial volume rules to cover streaming.

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 576 by Sen. Thomas Umberg (D-Santa Ana) to turn down the volume of commercials that rise to a level louder than the primary video content being watched.

When Congress passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act in 2010, the law only applied to broadcast television stations and cable operators. Gov. Newsom noted that the state’s new rules extend those limits now to streaming services, which have skyrocketed in popularity over the past decade.

“We heard Californians loud and clear, and what’s clear is that they don’t want commercials at a volume any louder than the level at which they were previously enjoying a program,” Newsom said. “By signing SB 576, California is dialing down this inconvenience across streaming platforms, which had previously not been subject to commercial volume regulations passed by Congress in 2010.”

“This bill was inspired by baby Samantha and every exhausted parent who’s finally gotten a baby to sleep, only to have a blaring streaming ad undo all that hard work,” said bill sponsor Umberg. “SB 576 brings some much-needed peace and quiet to California households by making sure streaming ads aren’t louder than the shows we actually want to watch.”

Even though many critics say the current laws on the books are not being adequately enforced, opponents argued that the new rules will be even harder to enforce.

“Unlike in the broadcasting [and] cable network environment, where advertisers sell their ads directly to the networks, streaming ads come from several different sources and cannot necessarily or practically be controlled by streaming platforms,” Melissa Patack, the MPA’s vice president of state government affairs, testified last summer.

Earlier this year, the FCC issued a Notice of Public Rulemaking (NPRM), seeking public input on the effectiveness of the current rules. That NPRM acknowledged streaming but did not suggest that the rules be extended. Closing date for public comments was in May, the FCC has not taken any more action since.

The law, which covers television broadcast stations, cable operators, and other multichannel video programming distributors in addition to streaming services, was so simply written that we feel comfortable publishing it verbatim:

“Existing law regulates various businesses to, among other things, preserve and regulate competition, prohibit unfair trade practices, and regulate advertising.

“Existing federal law requires the Federal Communications Commission to develop regulations that require commercials to have the same average volume as the programs they accompany. The federal regulations apply to television broadcast stations, cable operators, and other multichannel video programming distributors.

“This bill would prohibit, on and after July 1, 2026, a video streaming service, as defined, that serves consumers in the state from transmitting the audio of commercial advertisements louder than the video content the advertisements accompany, as specified. The bill would state that it does not create a private right of action.”

Costa Nikols, executive team strategy adviser, Media & Entertainment, for Telos Alliance, said that since the passage of the federal CALM Act, television has drastically changed to on-demand and OTT platforms where audio levels for commercials remain unregulated.

“California’s new streaming regulations mark an important first step toward improving the viewer experience,” Nikols said. “The industry now has an opportunity to apply the same discipline to streaming audio that transformed broadcast. Audio processing that can help broadcasters with streaming content loudness levels will be in increased focus as companies push to maintain dialogue intelligibility and quality. We saw it before with broadcast—the right technology is already in place, so the industry should feel ready to do it again.”

In an effort to maintain its status as the “entertainment capital of the world,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a more than doubling of the state’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program from the current $330 million allocation to $750 million annually.

“This ambitious expansion would position California as the top state for capped film incentive programs, surpassing other states like New York,” Newsom said in announcing the expansion. “California is the entertainment capital of the world, rooted in decades of creativity, innovation and unparalleled talent. Expanding this program will help keep production here at home, generate thousands of good-paying jobs and strengthen the vital link between our communities and the state’s iconic film and TV industry.”

In recent years, the state has seen a decrease in tax revenues from film and TV production, partly due to the double whammy of the pandemic and the almost year-long actors and writers strike that crippled the industry in 2023. But the governor’s office attributed the main reason for the decline to the limits of the current program.

“This program has been oversubscribed year after year, with more productions applying than can be accommodated under the current cap,” Newsom said. “Between 2020 and 2024, data shows California lost production spending due to limited tax-credit funding and increased competition in other states and countries, directly impacting state jobs and local economies​​.

“In recent years, projects that were unable to secure California’s tax credits and moved to other locations as a result contributed to significant economic losses, with an estimated 71% of rejected projects subsequently filming out-of-state,” the governor added.

This past summer, overall production in greater Los Angeles declined by 5% to 5,048 shoot days, according to the latest report from FilmLA, the film office for the city and county of Los Angeles. “The lackluster quarter was the weakest so far in 2024, and surprising for its failure to meet or exceed numbers shared at this time a year ago,” [during the strike],” FilmLA said.

FilmLA President Paul Audley voiced his advocacy for the program earlier this month and urged it to be updated.

“California’s film incentive is a proven jobs creator that studies show provides a net positive return on every allocated dollar,” he said. “What the program lacks is funding and eligibility criteria that reflect the outputs of the industry in 2024. The program’s structure and management through the California Film Commission—these are excellent. But just as our competitors continue to innovate, California must do the same.”

According to a study of California’s film incentive, for every dollar of tax credits approved, the program generated at least $24.40 in output, $16.14 in GDP, $8.60 in wages and $1.07 in initial state and local tax revenue from production. Since its inception in 2009, California’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program has generated more than $26 billion in economic activity and supported more than 197,000 cast and crew jobs across the state, according to the governor’s office.

Tax credits will become refundable for the first time since the program’s inception in 2009, beginning with Program 4.0 set to commence on July 1, 2025.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass added her support. “Hollywood is the cornerstone of this city and our economy and our message to the industry today is clear—we have your back,” she said. “When I was Speaker of the California State Assembly, I worked to support leaders like now-Councilman Paul Krekorian to create the film tax credit. Despite the economy being in a difficult spot, we knew that the industry needed support and if we could at least start the program, then we could grow it. Today I’m proud to stand with Governor Newsom and industry leaders to continue this important work supporting this legacy industry.”

SACRAMENTO—Together with Senator Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), entertainment unions and the California Film Commission, Governor Gavin Newsom has come out in support for SB 485, which would invest $1.65 billion in the state’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program to extend it for an additional five years, through 2030. 

This program allocates $330 million per year in tax credits for the industry.

The announcement also noted that hundreds of showrunners have demanded that production companies implement protocols to protect pregnant employees in states where abortion is outlawed.

“As other states rollback people’s rights, California will continue to protect fundamental freedoms for all and welcome businesses that stand up for their employees,” said Governor Newsom. “Extending this program will help ensure California’s world-renowned entertainment industry continues to drive economic growth with good jobs and a diverse, inclusive workforce.”

Supporters of the measure noted that the state’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program has been shown to generate $24 in economic activity for every $1 invested – spurring tens of billions of dollars in economic output, helping create over 110,000 jobs, and bringing shows and films to California.

The Entertainment Union Coalition has also come out in favor of the legislation. 

"Governor Newsom gave the 163,000 women and men we represent who work in the California film and television industry a lifeline,” the Coalition said in a statement. “With the announcement that he will sign SB 485 into law, extending the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program to 2030, Governor Newsom has assured a future where our members can continue to work at jobs they love, in the state they call home, and be present as members of their families and communities.”

The Members of the Entertainment Union Coalition (EUC) are: California IATSE Council (CIC); Directors Guild of America, LiUNA! Local 724, SAG AFTRA, and Teamsters Local 399  

LOS ANGELES—A pair of earthquakes hit the Southern California region late last week, with the biggest registering as a 7.1 on the Richter scale. The earthquake hit at 8:21 p.m. PT on Friday, July 5, and was captured live during a broadcast of CBS Los Angeles’ local newscast. Anchors Sarah Donchey and Juan Fernandez give their viewers a quick rundown of what is happening in their studio before Donchey says they should take cover under their desk and Fernandez cuts to break. A video of the broadcast when the earthquake hit can be viewed here.

Elsewhere in Los Angeles, a broadcast of the Dodgers playing the San Diego Padres also captured live footage of the quake, and while the broadcasters make note of it the players seemed not to mind, continuing to play as no delay was called.

While the earthquake, which had an epicenter in Ridgecrest, Calif., resulted in a good bit of damage, no deaths were reported as a result.

Find out more about the broadcast and the earthquake’s impact here.