Hate Loud Commercials? Well, They May Be Outlawed Soon
Good news for those of you who hate loud commercials — a bill currently bouncing around in Congress would force the FCC to "preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes than the program material they accompany."
The cleverly named Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or "CALM", would require the following:
(1) advertisements accompanying such video programming shall not be excessively noisy or strident;
(2) such advertisements shall not be presented at modulation levels substantially higher than the program material that such advertisements accompany; and
(3) the average maximum loudness of such advertisements shall not be substantially higher than the average maximum loudness of the program material that such advertisements accompany.
The Wall Street Journal says that the industry is already planning to deal with the commercial loudness issue on its own.
Broadcasters say they are addressing the problem already. "The major television broadcast networks, including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, are each, individually, implementing policies that attempt to control loud commercials," said David Donovan, president of the Association for Maximum Service Television, a broadcast industry trade group, speaking at a hearing Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee.
A representative from NBC said that Congress can expect an industry-wide review of commercial volume in July. Broadcasters could begin implementing it by the fall.
Do you think they'll actually do this? Should Congress pass the bill? Or do you not care about loud commercials?
Lawmakers Make Noise About Loud Commercials [WSJ]
Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (Introduced in House) [THOMAS]
Post a comment
Comments:
You don't really want to take away gems like this: http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/tf2-heavy-kaboom-infomercial/318208?playlist=featured
Thank goodness. Sometimes commercials scare the crap out of me because they are so much louder.
Just getting to bed and SIRENS!!!
BRINKS HOME SECURITY JUST A $99 SETUP FEE WOW.
So much for getting to bed.
i mute all commercials. it's instinctive as I've een doing it for 15 years.
Had a teacher who muted "channel 1" in high school (commercials) -- and i've been doing it ever since.
when people come to my house they think it's odd. I think it's odd being yelled at by car dealers and mortgage hawkers for five minutes straight.
i choose what i watch and hear - and nothing more.
Ban away... That is all.
Just to be fair to BIlly Mays, I don't think that his infomercials advertise in a louder volume than the others, he just yells at the camera. It's different.
Don't they have TVs with special volume control that caps the max volume at a certain level? I know the new DLP we are about to buy has this. I always hated it when you watch a movie with a sleeping kid and you have to increase / decrease the volume when background music plays then transitions to people chatting.
Wasn't there a TV years ago that claimed to prevent the ads from being way louder than the regular show?
I don't think it should have to come down to legislation but I like kaceetheconsumer I would also mute the TV or change the channel with the dumb auto ads tried to scream me out of the room. If I changed the channel I didn't always go back to the show I was originally watching.
I thought this was already illegal.
"ZOMG commie guvmint in my teevees!" in 3...2...1...
@Rectilinear Propagation: Lots of tvs offer this as a feature now although I think it was Zenith or Magnavox that originally advertised it. Doesn't help when you run it through your home theater though!
Loud commercials really do not bother me. As soon as ANY commercial break comes on, I either change channels to another program or mute the channel until the program comes back and totally ignore the commercials.
Finally, a solution for the plight of innocent remote controls everywhere, hammered into premature death-of-function by way of being furiously hammered to correct the advertorial assault upon our ears!
What about perceived loudness vs actual loudness. I work in a tv station in Canada and we get calls about this from time to time. I can watch the commercials that people complain about and measure the audio, the actual measured level will be normal with respect to program but sound louder because of the content of the commercial (music or use of compression). Plus if you are watching a show that is quiet with soft music (dramas, soaps) then when the commercials come on they will also sound louder because your ears have adjusted to the quietness of the program. You can tell the broadcasters to watch the levels but there also has to be some control over the content providers and advertisers to make sure they also comply.
It isn't just the major networks. When I was a Comcast subscriber, they would regularly play local ads at roughly twice, sometimes three times, the volume of the cable program I was watching. Often it was so loud, the sound was distorted. I sure hope they got that annoyance worked out.
@MostlyHarmless: Are you serious? Ever hear of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) who is already censoring TV programming?
Why can't we just launch a huge education campaign instead. We will calmly explain to everyone that they should never (i) buy anything based on an email solicitation they get, (ii) buy anything which is 'not available in stores', or (iii) believe that being the 278,383,494th level of Amway will make them any money whatsoever.
Maybe once everyone knows to stop patronizing these people, they will all go away?
May the vocal chords of Billy Mays be infested with carpenter ants to be ever silenced.@jamesdenver:
I'm the same way. And when I'm at a house that doesn't, I freak out a little. Serves me right I suppose, but I want to yell mute! mute!
@qwijybo: That's kind of what I've been telling people for years-- the commercial can't be louder than whatever level your TVs volume is set at.
But what I want to know is this - who in DC is the person tasked with coming up with the cute acronyms for proposed legislation? CALM? Remember the new credit card regulations (CARD)?
Instead of the CALM act, how about QUIET (Quit Upsetting Interior Environments with Trash)?
I can't find the article, but I think that the Gov't has agreed to back off and let the industry "fix" this but if nothing happens it will be back on the table.
YES damnit YES! On some programs I pretty well have to be ready for the fade-to-commercial black with the remote and either hit the mute button quick or mash the "volume down" button.
So I get to scream "damnit" more because I'm in Canada. This loudness-effect seems to be the most pronounced when watching American stations. American programs always just seem to be quieter, and the moment it switches over to ads (which sometimes switch over to Canada depending on the network, due to some sort of CRTC regulation), the ads are BLARING.
Maybe have something to do with the commercial switching thing or...something, whatever; I don't care, it's still annoying! Get on this CRTC!
They'd have a better shot at making Auto Volume adjusting standard on all televisions. It's a great feature on most newer sets which make the changes in volume almost impossible to detect.
@Rectilinear Propagation:
I don't know about TVs (you're probably right), but many A/V receivers have a "night mode" that will even out the volume of things you're watching. Movies have a tendency to have sound effects that are absurdly loud compared to the voices (which is fine in theaters, but sometimes I don't want to be overwhelmed by explosions) - night mode will even them out. On my old receiver it only worked with digital audio inputs, but my new receiver has a microphone that I can place in the room, so presumably it'll even out any audio input.
Constantly adjusting the volume is a pain. I hope this all works out.
Btw, don't hate Billy. Usually those commercials aren't to loud on average. It's all the local crap that is so loud it distorts lol.
@jdmba: It seems every company's commercials are annoyingly louder than the actual programming. Even the big-budget super-bowl ad type content. Not just crazy the crazy stuff.
when recorded, the VCR and some DVR's will automatically eliminate the volume issue on playback - they have a recording input sensor that moderates the input. And not too many years ago TV's were sold that had an automatic sound moderator that did the same thing. Interestingly enough, they were pulled from the market after being introduced.
@milqtost: Most recent THX-certified AV receivers will include THX Loudness Plus which normalizes volume across multiple sources. I have it in my Onkyo receiver and I never notice commercials being much louder than the shows before or after them.
@Laura Northrup: There is a maximum peek volume that a TV broadcast can have, as set by the FCC.
The issue is that TV shows spend a lot of time far away from peak, using the peak for dramatic music stabs, explosions, etc.
Commercials, on the other hand, spend most of their time at or near the peak volume allowed.
"The major television broadcast networks, including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, are each, individually, implementing policies that attempt to control loud commercials"
Dear Television networks. There is a very simple audio device called an Audio Compressor which automatically evens out the volume levels of what you are broarcasting so that everything is substantially the same volume.
My local FOX station is the worst. They have the audio for the programs turned way down so that you have to turn the volume on the TV to twice the level of all of the other stations, but their commercials are at the same level as the commercials on NBC. The result is room shaking!
@Leksi Wit: Yeah, but what makes you think they are swayed by logic and/or truth?
And by "they" i mean the nutjobs, not the FCC.
@Leksi Wit: Oh I suppose you thought I was ranting against the proposed ban. I wasn't. I was predicting that people will come in and rave like paranoids.
Finally, FX has been doing this for years. Its like they play their material at 75% of the volume of the other channels, then play their commercials at 150%.
Outlaw the permanent pause bar Comcast puts up so you can't read fine print!
Especially for Comcast triple play commercials!
@redskull: Except that you're wrong. The commercials can and most are louder than the volume of the show/movie you are watching. The volume control on a (normal) TV doesn't limit the decibel (dB) level, it reduces or amplifies it.
So if your TV is set to +2dB and the show you are watching is at an average of 55dB you are getting 57dB out of your TV. Now if a commercial comes on with an average of 57dB, you are now hearing 59dB and it will sound louder because it is.
@ThinkerTDM: Yeah no kidding, when I press mute, closed captions come on by default, and some loud commercials show up in all-caps. I think the cc'ers have a sense of humor...
I feel like it's AOL 3.0 in '95 again.
@MostlyHarmless: I'll bite. I voted "Trust..." for that reason. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the commercials to be as loud or quiet as they want. A law like that will dilute the value of the commercials which will directly impact the investments made by the networks on TV shows. We'll be stuck watching American Idol reruns and unoriginal cookie-cutter series because none of them have the funds to take a gamble with a new concept.
Those Esurance commercials are loud as hell. I stopped watching certain shows because of them.
Didn't a previous DVR make use of loud ad detection to activate a commercial skip feature?
@Easton21:
I don't watch a lot of TV and most of what I do watch I've recorded. I just skip right over the commercials; partially because they're annoying and I also hate the volume increase when they come on.
Billy Mays is a nice guy. (Watch "Pitchmen" (Discovery Channel) and you'll see why.)
We found the show and love it.
What commercials?
/DVR user
@Laura Northrup: As did I. My parents mentioned it several times when I was growing up, so I wonder where they got the idea from.
@David Guffy: Actually, going from low sound to no sound wakes the baby up too. Consistent sound works much better.
And again, the advertisers want me to listen, so it's in their interested to not scream at me and make me mute them.
YES. I would love this. It was not fun when my daughter spent the first year and a half of her life only napping on ME and if I watched TV, I'd have it at a nice quiet level only for an ad to come on three times louder and wake her and startle me.
Even now I hate it when I have to adjust the volume up and down between ad breaks.
It will help the advertisers, actually: I'm less likely to mute them or skip them if they weren't screaming at me. Plus in those baby-lap-nap days I watched a lot more TCM where the movies are uncensored, uncut, and don't have ad breaks, so the volume stayed level. Advertisers missed out on a lot of chances to grab my new-mommy eyes because of their shouting.