A film that plays on a broadcaster, a streaming service, a social feed and in a screening room has to satisfy four different loudness specifications. They are not variations on one number: they measure different things over different windows, and a mix that is comfortably inside one can be rejected by the next.
The cheap way to handle that is to decide, before the mix starts, which target is the master and what the others are derived from. The expensive way is to find out at QC.
Pick the strictest delivery first and mix to it. Everything else is a derivation; the other direction is a remix.
Studio handbook
The measurements are not interchangeable
Broadcast delivery in Europe is normally specified as an integrated programme loudness with a true-peak ceiling and a tolerance either side. North American broadcast uses a similar integrated measurement with its own ceiling. Streaming platforms normalise on playback instead, which means a mix delivered louder than their reference is turned down rather than rejected — and the dynamic range you fought for gets flattened by the limiter you did not choose. Social platforms are stricter still, and much of the audience never turns the sound on.
Mix to the strictest, derive the rest
In practice the broadcast delivery is the tightest, so that is what we mix to. The streaming and social versions are then produced from the same stems with a documented offset and their own true-peak pass, not by re-opening the mix. Every derived version is measured again after rendering, because a format conversion can move a true peak even when nothing about the mix has changed.
Keep the stems separable
Dialogue, music and effects stay as separate stems through the whole process. When a platform asks for a quieter music bed, or a territory needs the dialogue replaced, that is a re-balance of existing material rather than a new mix. Stems are also what makes an accessible audio-description version possible later without going back to the beginning.
Ship the measurement with the file
Every master we deliver goes out with its measured integrated loudness, loudness range and true peak in the QC report. If a broadcaster's own check disagrees with ours, the conversation starts from two numbers instead of two opinions, and it is usually resolved the same day.
None of this is difficult. It just has to be decided at the start of the mix rather than after it, which is entirely a scheduling problem and not a technical one.
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