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Elephant Audio
Audio production · Sound design · Music production
LahorePKEngineering sound since 2018
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UK DPP requires non-live programmes at −23.0 LUFS ±0.5 LU and live at ±1.0 LU. True peak is recommended below −3 dBTP, and content fails if it exceeds −1 dBTP. Loudness Range should not exceed 18 LU, factual speech 6 LU, with a minimum 4 LU separation between dialogue and background.
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Transcribed from the published standard, read 2026-09-19. Check it yourself
The target is −23.0 LUFS, the same figure as EBU R 128, which invites the assumption that a file passing one passes the other. It does not follow. UK DPP allows ±0.5 LU on non-live programmes — half of R 128's ±1.0 LU — and reserves the wider ±1.0 LU for live and as-live.
⚠️ So a programme sitting 0.8 LU from target is inside the European recommendation and outside the UK delivery requirement. This is the most common way a file that “meets R 128” comes back from a UK broadcaster.
From the DPP delivery requirements table:
The specification recommends staying below −3 dBTP and fails content above −1 dBTP. Those are different thresholds doing different jobs, and summaries that quote a single figure lose the distinction that actually decides whether a delivery is accepted.
The practical reading: −1 dBTP is the wall. −3 dBTP is the margin that keeps a file off it after transcoding, which is why it is recommended rather than required.
Most delivery specifications say nothing about the relationship between dialogue and everything underneath it. This one does: a minimum separation of 4 LU between dialogue and background is recommended, and factual speech should hold a Loudness Range of no more than 6 LU.
That is a mix instruction rather than a measurement threshold, and it is the closest thing in any specification examined here to a written rule about intelligibility. It also means a mix can satisfy every loudness number and still be marked down on delivery for burying its dialogue.
Not necessarily. Both target −23.0 LUFS, but UK DPP allows only ±0.5 LU on non-live programmes against R 128's ±1.0 LU. A file 0.8 LU from target satisfies the European recommendation and fails the UK requirement.
Above −1 dBTP. The −3 dBTP figure commonly quoted is the recommendation, not the fail threshold — it exists to leave margin so a file does not end up on the wall after transcoding.
It is written as a recommendation rather than a pass or fail number, alongside a target Loudness Range of no more than 6 LU for factual speech. It is nonetheless the clearest written rule about dialogue intelligibility in any spec covered here, and worth mixing to.
This page is the lookup. Broadcast and Streaming Loudness Specs for Commercials is the explanation behind it.
The tolerance is half what most references quote, and the true-peak rule has two numbers. Both are worth agreeing before the mix rather than after the QC report.
Studio credit
Elephant Audio
Audio production · Sound design · Music production
LahorePKEngineering sound since 2018
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