CALM, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act -- passed unanimously by the Senate -- goes into effect today.  With TV stations and cable operators no longer allowed to “crank up the sound” when ads come on, the Star Tribune’s Neal Justin talks to some relevant local folks -- like a Target tech support worker who cut the cord two years ago because of blaring commercials, and the chief creative officer of agency Campbell-Mithun, who says commercial volume-raisers have been “operating from a primitive part of the brain that thinks speaking louder gets you heard more."  

With financial backing from Nielsen, VC firm Pereq Ventures launches "with plans to invest in marketing technology firms that will help advertisers reach and measure audiences across different media platforms and devices," writes Matthew Flamm. With connections between the two companies -- Pereq's chairman is also an exec at Nielsen -- "Nielsen will provide Pereg's portfolio companies with insights into media industries and a place to try out their products and services."

USA Today is refining its longstanding Super Bowl Ad Meter, spelling the end of in-person panels "in an attempt to bring in more voters online, and is also discontinuing its brief Ad Meter collaboration with Facebook," writes Nat Ives. Next year the newpaper also plans "to bring [the Ad Meter's] scrutiny of commercials to TV events... beyond the big game."

In a move that Patrick Coffee calls "unprecedented—or at the very least extremely rare," Beyonce's recently signed sponsorship deal with PepsiCo includes, beyond the standard commercial-starring gigs, “a multimillion-dollar fund to support the singer’s chosen creative projects." These projects could include "'live events... or almost anything else' including humanitarian efforts," writes Coffee. "At this moment in time, big brands like Pepsi have a lot more money than record companies to support a music industry that’s still hemorrhaging revenue. Pepsi clearly wants to beat Coca-Cola at the music sponsorship game, so we say it’s your move, Coke." …

The "radical departure" of Disney's choice of Netflix "as its its pay-TV provider for first-run theatrical films starting in 2016 indicates that the entertainment giant is doubtful that the industry can successfully implement 'TV Everywhere,' its strategy to make online video available only to traditional pay-TV providers," according to an analyst cited by David Wilkerson.

"Condé Nast and Hearst Corp. are going head-to-head to get a cut of the booming Hispanic market" with, respectively, a new pub and increased frequency for a current one, writes Erik Maza. A supplement to Condé Nast's Glamour, Glam Belleza Latina (or Latin Beauty) will be mailed to Hispanic Glamour readers on a quarterly basis starting in April. And Hearst's Cosmopolitan for Latinas will move from biannual to quarterly publication in 2013.

In the wake of news that the Washington Post will probably begin charging for digital content, Dean Starkman analyzes a front-page Post story that could conceivably offer value: a "profile of Tabitha Rouzzo, a lower-middle-class (that is, very poor) high school student with dreams of getting out of a depressed New Castle, Pa." The piece "didn’t come cheap and required reporting over several months," but it's "just plain old public-interest reporting. It does, in my view, one of the more valuable things that journalism can do: connect elite readers with places and people they wouldn’t otherwise know about."

The 126-year-old Sporting News, formerly a weekly and then semi-weekly cut back to monthly frequency in 2011, will move to digital-only publication beginning Jan. 1.  Owner American City Business Journals, part of Advance Publications, plans to offer mostly free daily content and monetize through advertising.

In what "could be seen as a first step toward selling sports channels separately," satellite broadcaster DirecTV has quietly been charging an extra monthly fee to its subscribers who "live in areas where there are more than one regional sports network... and want those channels," writes Joe Flint. "A spokesman for the company said only about 20% of the markets around the country have more than one regional sports network -- although that number is on the rise as Comcast, News Corp. and Time Warner Cable increasingly turn to sports to develop new channels."

Hearst will publish its first book under its new label, 7YY/Hearst Magazines, which is "devoted to helping baby boomers and others look and feel younger" in early January, writes Jim Milliot. The book -- "7 Years Younger: The Revolutionary 7-Week Anti-Aging Plan" -- is the first Hearst volume not to feature copy from Hearst magazines, but the idea originated in a column in Good Housekeeping. "7 Years Younger" will be promoted in various Hearst pubs and, "using its subscriber database... through a variety of online and digital initiatives,"  the "first time [the company] has backed a book with a direct …