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  (Source: wordpress.com)
The FCC passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act Tuesday to control TV commercial volume

Get ready to not jump out of your seat and fumble for the remote every time a commercial comes on TV -- the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is finally going to make commercials the same volume as entertainment/news programming.

The FCC passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act Tuesday as a way of eliminating the excessively loud volume of TV commercials in comparison to TV shows or news.

Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park) is responsible for the creation of the bill after Congress passed legislation regarding the topic of commercial volume last year. Congress then told the FCC to draw up some enforcement rules.

"Most of us have...experienced this ourselves: You're watching your favorite television program, or the news, and all of a sudden, a commercial comes on, and it sounds like someone turned up the volume -- but no one did," said Julius Genachowski, FCC chairman. "Today, the FCC is quieting a persistent problem of the television age: loud commercials."

Cable and satellite companies along with local broadcasters will have to keep tabs on the volume of commercials after the new rules are implemented in December 2012.

"I cannot tell you how many hundreds of citizens have told me -- personally, through emails and letters, at public hearings, even across the family dinner table -- how obnoxiously intrusive they find loud commercials," said Michael J. Copps, FCC Commissioner.

Source: The Los Angeles Times


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Fine....
By NicodemusMM on 12/14/2011 12:16:28 PM , Rating: 5
...but when I read "'Obnoxious' volume of TV commercials" I thought quantity, not loudness.

Not that I want the Gov to get involved, but the number and length of commercials is kinda sad. One day in the not-too-distant future I'll be able to tell my children how we used to have more programming than commercials.

Just one more reason I don't watch much TV.




RE: Fine....
By ZaethDekar on 12/14/2011 12:59:16 PM , Rating: 3
Thats what I was thinking as well.

I was hoping that they were going to reduce it to no more than 15% of the time can be commercials.


RE: Fine....
By FITCamaro on 12/14/11, Rating: 0
RE: Fine....
By icemansims on 12/14/2011 2:40:00 PM , Rating: 1
Yeah....I call bullshit. "Don't consume X if you don't like Y" is not a valid argument.

Don't want more commercials than shows on TV? Don't watch TV. Don't want more advertising than video on Youtube? Don't watch Youtube.
Don't want to sign away your right to protect yourself legally from overcharges from cellphones/credit card/utility bill/cable bill/internet bill? Don't sign up for them.

In fact, why not just go live in a cardboard box down by the river.


RE: Fine....
By Noubourne on 12/14/2011 2:55:08 PM , Rating: 5
Is there some kind of shortage of vans down by the river all of a sudden that we are going straight to cardboard boxes?

Geez. I guess the economy really IS bad.


RE: Fine....
By ElderTech on 12/15/2011 10:50:59 AM , Rating: 2
As for the maintaining the volume of the program and commercial at the same level, this is far less common than it was in the day of Billy Mays commercials. But of course any improvement is commendable. However, it's not just the differences within the individual channel that's an issue, it's also the differences between different channel volumes. This is a real concern with many local PBS stations, where their volume is substantially louder than the other channels in the area. Chicago and Milwaukee are prime examples where this occurs. Probably simply a lack of technical expertise on the part of the broadcast engineers. But they should know better to watch their meters. Hopefully this initiative will key them to the overall channel volume problem.

And in answer to the question of too many commercials, in this day of multitasking, look at it as an opportunity to maintain focus on each individual topic of interest, such as reading a magazine, studying for something, texting, etc. for a reasonable period of time while watching TV without degrading your comprehension of each by trying to do them at the same time.


RE: Fine....
By tng on 12/15/2011 2:28:48 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
This is a real concern with many local PBS stations, where their volume is substantially louder than the other channels in the area.
LOL, PBS commercials?

I have not watched any PBS stations in years and last I did there were no "commercials" really, just hours long interruptions of the only palatable programming they had begging for funds.

Has something changed on the PBS funding stereotype since I last watched?


RE: Fine....
By invidious on 12/14/2011 3:14:01 PM , Rating: 3
Actually its not bullshit, expecting to have your cake and eat it too is not a valid outlook on life.

The government isn't here to enforce your personal preferences. You dont need TV, youtube or a cell phone. If you dont like the terms of use then you dont get to use them. I would rather see a few naive people like you be unhappy then see everyone be unhappy because to the quality of these services deminished due to over regulation.

The power of the consumer is supposed to the decision of when to open their wallet. Not when to open their mouths and complain.


RE: Fine....
By EricMartello on 12/14/2011 4:17:40 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The government isn't here to enforce your personal preferences. You dont need TV, youtube or a cell phone. If you dont like the terms of use then you dont get to use them. I would rather see a few naive people like you be unhappy then see everyone be unhappy because to the quality of these services deminished due to over regulation.


Technically, in a democracy, if enough people echo the same "personal preference" then by theory it should and could become law. Of course, we all know our current government is lobbyist-driven and not representative as it was intended to be from the start...but yea, if enough people felt that there should be a limit to the frequency at which commercials are played in the course of a TV program, such regulation could come to pass.

I use my DVR to record shows I want to watch even if I am home at the time, so I can skip the commercials. It's not just that there are some loud, obnoxious ones...but so many of them are just plain idiotic and irritating. Watching shows using an "on demand" service may sometimes result in fewer or no commercials as well.


RE: Fine....
By avxo on 12/14/2011 5:31:30 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Technically, in a democracy, if enough people echo the same "personal preference" then by theory it should and could become law. Of course, we all know [... snip ...]


that the United States is not a democracy but a Constitutional Republic, so who cares what should and could happen in a democracy?

There, I fixed that for you.


RE: Fine....
By ClownPuncher on 12/14/2011 6:55:51 PM , Rating: 3
Thank you. People just can't seem to grasp this.


RE: Fine....
By EricMartello on 12/15/11, Rating: -1
RE: Fine....
By C'DaleRider on 12/15/2011 4:29:23 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
The US is not a "constitutional republic"


Guess this part of the Pledge of Allegiance escaped you.....

quote:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands


Hint: That part has been in the pledge since it was written back in 1892.

The U.S. has always existed as a democratic republic. True, it began as a "pure" democracy when the U.S. was nothing but a collection of colonies....which means every person allowed to vote voted upon every single issue, typically at town meetings, but as the nation grew, that sort of democracy became impractical. How would you get millions of people to vote on every single issue facing the U.S. every time an issue came up?

So, instead, we became a democratic republic.....meaning we elect representatives who then are supposed to act on the best interests of their voters and the nation. That's how a republic works....a few are elected to represent many.

Go take a civics class.


RE: Fine....
By Ryrod on 12/15/2011 5:48:44 AM , Rating: 3
Technically neither of them is entirely wrong, nor entirely right. You are right about the US being a democratic republic, but this only lasted, in the classical sense, until 1913 with the passage of the 17th Amendment. When the 17th Amendment passed, and state legislatures stopped electing their Senators, we became a Constitutional Representative Democracy, regardless of what Article IV states. However, one could make the argument that we were never a true liberal democratic republic in the sense that only a select group of individuals had suffrage until the 19th Amendment in 1920. I only say this because liberal democracy is what we typically refer to when we talk about democracy in the modern sense.

The idea of a republic has been rather amorphous given the history of the republican form of government tracing back to the Classical Era with modifications during the Renaissance, and the heavy modifications during the Modern Era. Now we essentially deem any representative democracy a republic, but this was not necessarily the case in the Classical Era. So while the system of government in the US could be called a republic, it is primarily because the term has grown to encompass any form of government where the people are represented by others.


RE: Fine....
By FITCamaro on 12/15/2011 9:31:43 AM , Rating: 1
So much fail.

We are a democratic republic. Pure and simple. In a democracy, every single vote is counted on every issue on every level. In the United States, we elect representatives to speak for us at the state and federal level.

And where do you get this bullshit that in a republic you have the right to claim sovereignty if you dislike a law? Now maybe you would have that right if it was given to you in the laws of a nation. But that is not some fundamental tenant of a republic. Regardless of what you classify America as, you are free to renounce your citizenship and move elsewhere if you don't like our laws.

Furthermore if 49% of people dislike what 51% are doing enough, they'll rebel as has already happened once and will likely happen again if things continue. The majority of us are getting tired of a minority of idiots like yourself deciding that we need to subsidize you or your grand schemes.


RE: Fine....
By EricMartello on 12/17/2011 10:11:37 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
We are a democratic republic. Pure and simple. In a democracy, every single vote is counted on every issue on every level. In the United States, we elect representatives to speak for us at the state and federal level.


You're reciting a 3rd grade textbook from 1982. This is 2011 and sh1t does not work that way TODAY. We are supposed to be a republic where the "power" is distributed among the citizens, but it's not. The power is mainly held by a select few wealthy individuals/corporations and THAT is whose calling the shots TODAY.

quote:
And where do you get this bullshit that in a republic you have the right to claim sovereignty if you dislike a law? Now maybe you would have that right if it was given to you in the laws of a nation. But that is not some fundamental tenant of a republic. Regardless of what you classify America as, you are free to renounce your citizenship and move elsewhere if you don't like our laws.


Did I say "dislike" or did your reading comprehension cut off at a 3rd grade level too? If we were a TRUE republic then as the DEFINITION of republic goes, the minority being able to claim sovereignty from the majority is a right of the subjects.

America is not a country for people who leave if they dislike something, it's a country for people who are willing to change what they don't like if they believe there is a better way. You should probably consider leaving America so that our population's average intelligence rebounds to primate-level.

quote:
Furthermore if 49% of people dislike what 51% are doing enough, they'll rebel as has already happened once and will likely happen again if things continue. The majority of us are getting tired of a minority of idiots like yourself deciding that we need to subsidize you or your grand schemes.


Right, because all points of disagreement warrant a rebellion. I like how you jump start at the bottom of the slippery-slope and actually dig your way down deeper, but totally fail to understand what the grown-ups are talking about. When did I say anything about subsidizing anything? There ALREADY ARE limitations on commercial content for programming...and why do you believe you are not in the idiot group? Don't all idiots believe they're geniuses. You seem to think so.

The best thing for you to do is pop off your t-tops, spread your mullet and use it to wind-power your iroc off a cliff while you suck down cans of keystone light and smash them on your forehead. Else, keep doing that until you're in canada (or mexico), preferably somewhere that lacks internet connectivity.


RE: Fine....
By mattclary on 12/14/2011 6:19:17 PM , Rating: 3
Slippery slope, my friend, slippery slope. As the other reply said, we are not a true democracy. What if we all decide we don't like people of certain ethnic groups? You can't decide the fate of a society on whims. The Constitution sets the rules for the game. We have strayed too far from it as it stands...


RE: Fine....
By EricMartello on 12/15/2011 2:18:30 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
Slippery slope, my friend, slippery slope. As the other reply said, we are not a true democracy. What if we all decide we don't like people of certain ethnic groups? You can't decide the fate of a society on whims. The Constitution sets the rules for the game. We have strayed too far from it as it stands...


We are not a true democracy in that the people, i.e. US Citizens, whose interests are supposed to be REPRESENTED by their elected officials are no longer being represented. Today, it is mainly the interests of big business which get attention because they are the ones providing the largest bribes...aka campaign contributions.


RE: Fine....
By Indianapolis on 12/17/2011 5:41:46 PM , Rating: 2
You're all wrong; we actually live in an Idiocracy.


RE: Fine....
By nocturne_81 on 12/18/2011 10:23:39 PM , Rating: 2
You forget to remember that the broadcast stations are pretty much the equivalent of government chartered corporations.. They are granted their broadcast frequencies in exchange for providing valuable content for the greater good.

In addition, the FCC oversees all the frequencies that any cable/net service operates on.. so they have authority pretty much everywhere. Kick and whine all you want -- but the FCC does plenty of good, including allowing all of us to skip harassing commercials by using a dvr.

The quantative volume of commercials, though.. has become quite ridiculous. In the last few years, it's gone from 25% of airtime to nearly 40% -- absolutely ridiculous, especially considering that it's a service you have to pay for.


RE: Fine....
By FITCamaro on 12/14/2011 3:29:52 PM , Rating: 2
It is a perfectly valid argument for the luxuries of life. If said luxuries are too expensive or don't meet your desires, you don't use/pay for them. Television production companies do not make television shows for your entertainment pleasure. They make them in order to make money. If they want to show 25 minutes of commercials with 5 minutes of show, that's their right. It just likely won't last long because no one would watch it.

I can't afford a brand new Corvette ZR-1. Should I go to Congress and complain that GM wouldn't sell it to me at a price that I can afford? According to your logic I should.

What don't you self entitled assholes get about the real world? It does not exist for your pleasure. I don't care what your mommy told you or the teachers in school who told you that you are all special.


RE: Fine....
By EricMartello on 12/14/11, Rating: -1
RE: Fine....
By Spuke on 12/14/2011 5:38:06 PM , Rating: 2
Ok, so how does the FCC benefit from ad revenue exactly?


RE: Fine....
By avxo on 12/14/2011 5:38:48 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The FCC is there to regulate what's on TV


Not true. The FCC has many functions. One of them, sadly, is to be an arbiter of what can be broadcast on the public airwaves.

The FCC has little authority over what a private company chooses to carry over its own cables. The FCC cannot tell, for example, TimeWarner Cable to not carry a sex channel on their cable lineup, even if that cable channel puts hardcore porn at 2:30pm on a Saturday. It is, after all, TW's cable, and they can put whatever they want on it. If you don't like it, don't pay for it - or don't patronize TW cable, or start a "Get the filth out of TW" movement. Whatever you do, the FCC can't help you.


RE: Fine....
By EricMartello on 12/15/11, Rating: 0
RE: Fine....
By rlandess on 12/14/2011 11:37:43 PM , Rating: 1
Let's not throw around words like "assholes" so lightly. The power to tell networks how they can broadcast goes to the FCC because the cable and over-the-air networks were made possible by federal money for R&D and deployment of infrastructure. We paid for the R&D, we paid for the network, we pay the operating costs by buying crap from the commercials, I'd say yes, we should rightfully get a say in how much louder the commercials are than the crap we choose to watch.

Networks are in the business of making shows "for our entertainment pleasure." Any business should in the habit of selling a product that is worth more than you pay. This is how a successful transaction happens: person discovers product, person weighs the value of product vs the cost to buy, person purchases product because the net benefit outweighs the costs to obtain product... It is asinine to say that they don't exist to make entertainment, if they existed to make commercials then they would be in the business of advertising not TV production.

If the Corvette was built with government subsidies with assumptions that the final product should meet specific guidelines for the public but the produced vehicle isn't satisfactory then why the hell wouldn't we complain about it to Congress?

I don't think you grasp the nature of the "real world." Much of today's awesome technology comes from research paid for by government money, that is - our money. When it has been prudent to regulate (as with the FCC) it has been for the betterment of the public. Without the FCC we wouldn't have had an original NTSC standard for broadcast we may have kept multiple competing standards like we have with cell phones (very annoying). The government has had a positive role in the past, regulating in the best interest of the public but also supporting the growth of industry. The government has played a positive complimentary role to industry. It's played out in our favor overall until the last few decades.

What's changed? The right wing conservative infiltration of a otherwise healthy secular government? The ignorant push to remove regulation and push a unbridled free-market agenda? The exploitation of uneducated voters strengthen the base of an otherwise minority party? A horrible two party system that can't pass meaningful legislation in either party's favor because of partisan bullshitting and procedural logjams?

The public is constantly being exploited by either unscrupulous corporations out for our money or lying sacks of feces who are out for our votes. It's disgusting to hear someone say that when people do their civic duty and relay their complaints through the proper channels to enact a positive change in their life, that that person is a whiny "self entitled asshole." Whining to your congressman is the patriotic thing to do, it's what we get instead of a democracy. If you don't do it when you're pissed off at something (relevant to government) then you shouldn't complain when you feel poorly represented in government.

quote:
I don't care what your mommy told you or the teachers in school who told you that you are all special.


Why do I get the feeling you're not a fan of education?


RE: Fine....
By FITCamaro on 12/15/11, Rating: 0
RE: Fine....
By nolisi on 12/15/2011 2:34:16 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
You do. By choosing not to watch said programming.


When I set my TV/Audio system to a comfortable listening level, advertising agencies have no right to hijack my sound system for several practical reasons

1) the increase in volume could be stressing my soundsystem thereby reducing its longevity (and it costs me more to play anything louder, even if it is only the signal that is amplified)

2) it could damage my hearing, this is especially true as more households purchase expensive wireless headphones as listening devices so as not to disturb others in the household (in my own life, I know of 4 families who use these solutions)

3) I have no idea what the volume is on the upcoming commercial. One could be louder, one could be quieter, so it's not like I can even pre-set my sound system to accommodate the varying levels of sound.

My viewpoint is that by amplifying the signal at the source, advertising firms are engaging in a basic form of hacking on my soundsystem- they are modifying data to achieve their goal of advertising. I don't see this as any different as a hacker injecting a trojan into an application to control my system. They do not have the right to control the output of sound from my system, especially if they're not going to pay the bill to fix my soundsystem or my hearing if their increased volume damages them.


RE: Fine....
By Fritzr on 12/15/2011 10:06:37 PM , Rating: 2
The Corvette actually is built according to US government mandated rules.

The car manufacturers have a lot of leeway in design, but the final product is required to be "street legal". This means that multiple standards are met that are written by a government agency. NHTSA and the various DOTs for the most part where motor vehicles used on public roads are concerned. The CAFE standards currently in the news and crash survivability are just 2 of the federally mandated requirements.

State & Federal agencies have quite a bit of say in what private businesses can or cannot do when they offer a product or service to a general population. The customer may be right, but if the government says "no", then neither the vendor's opinion nor the customer's opinion matters.


RE: Fine....
By borismkv on 12/14/2011 1:15:16 PM , Rating: 1
Yeah. I'm getting sick of the comercials before youtube videos that are longer than the video I'm trying to watch.


RE: Fine....
By FITCamaro on 12/14/11, Rating: 0
RE: Fine....
By Nfarce on 12/14/2011 1:28:00 PM , Rating: 2
That's the beauty of DVR'ing, especially for those of us who travel a lot and aren't at home much to watch TV. Just watch those commercials sail on by when you do get home and catch up...


RE: Fine....
By AntiM on 12/14/2011 1:41:25 PM , Rating: 2
I never watch commercials. I keep the remote in my hand and when a commercial comes on I flip to another channel.


RE: Fine....
By GTVic on 12/14/2011 1:42:16 PM , Rating: 2
AMC DVR'ing is great, although their shows are of dubious quality, their commercials are almost always exactly 5 minutes long, so one button press and you are back to the action.


RE: Fine....
By Kefner on 12/14/2011 2:19:45 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, thank goodness for DVR. I record most everything and watch it later so I can fast forward thru the commercials.


RE: Fine....
By mattclary on 12/14/2011 6:15:02 PM , Rating: 2
I thought the exact same thing. Thank God for TiVo and it's ilk.


RE: Fine....
By augiem on 12/15/2011 1:10:03 PM , Rating: 2
Watch the movie Idiocracy. Modern prophecy.


Obnoxious
By Amedean on 12/14/2011 12:12:21 PM , Rating: 5
Don't forget the internet, as soon as this webpage loaded my mouse landed over a link with those annoying popups with blazing loud audio appeared.




RE: Obnoxious
By BZDTemp on 12/14/2011 12:24:54 PM , Rating: 5
Install some adblock plugin in your browser and that will not happen again.


RE: Obnoxious
By BugblatterIII on 12/14/2011 3:04:21 PM , Rating: 5
I always thought it was fair enough for sites to have ads to support themselves, so I didn't have an ad blocker.

The day I encountered an advert with sound I installed one.

Basically they screwed themselves.


RE: Obnoxious
By Spuke on 12/14/2011 5:42:12 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
The day I encountered an advert with sound I installed one.
They have sound now? Ridiculous.


RE: Obnoxious
By TSS on 12/14/2011 10:45:22 PM , Rating: 2
I'll one up that one, the nokia lumia commercial actually broke youtube for me. It played a video automatically, which itself was uploaded to youtube. But, the video wasn't available for some reason.

Every single nokia lumia ad infront of a movie wouldn't start, and thus the movie wouldn't start. For me youtube was down for a entire day. Other sites with the same commercial where glitchy as well, including the google main page which doesn't even have ads. (it just froze up entirely. Just google.com. Glitch Dissapeared at the same time that ad got fixed).

Most annoying ads remain those that pop up in the middle of the screen. Their mandated by law to have a close button, but it's always obscure and never in the same place.


RE: Obnoxious
By Cheesew1z69 on 12/14/2011 1:06:57 PM , Rating: 2
Then learn how to use it, there are ways to prevent that.


timing, duration, and number
By darckhart on 12/14/2011 12:20:53 PM , Rating: 2
I also find the timing, duration, and number of commercials to be very obnoxious. For example, the commercials usually interrupt the programming at the most critical and intense part of the story. Then they make it drag on for a few minutes, splice in a 1 sec screen of the tv show that makes you think the show is coming back but nope fooled you and it's another commercial. Also, there's just too many commercials during my half hour and 1 hour programs, usually about 9 mins in a half hr program, and 14 min in a 1 hr program. Since it's clear Congress can only agree on and accomplish stupid little things, I want a bill introduced to eliminate ALL of these obnoxious commercial traits.




RE: timing, duration, and number
By Stuka on 12/14/2011 12:40:23 PM , Rating: 2
It has been the case for at least a few decades, that there is only 20mins of show per 30mins of programming. If you've ever watched the British shows on PBS, this would be quite apparent. Since nothing has changed in the last quarter century (or more), I don't see that changing soon.

Along the lines of the FCC deal.. I have been saying for years that the IEEE, FCC, or someone needs to come out with a precise decibel standard for encoding movies, tv shows, music, video games.. ALL soundtracks. I see no reason all source material can't be zeroed to a given output level, just as a toaster is designed for 110v, or a car is made for 87octane; my stereo should be designed for an exact source level. My Primus CDs are about 20% quieter than any other I have, then I have others that are encoded so loud that the studio equipment was clipping. Nickelodeon and Comedy Central are 10% louder than every other channel. Movies on TV are always quieter than regular shows, or even their DVD counterpart. This is retarded. It's the 21st century. We have the technology.


RE: timing, duration, and number
By GTVic on 12/14/2011 1:44:20 PM , Rating: 2
In Canada it is 22 minutes :)


RE: timing, duration, and number
By GTVic on 12/14/2011 1:45:19 PM , Rating: 2
And the difference was responsible for Bob & Doug McKenzie's existence.


RE: timing, duration, and number
By Nehanarac on 12/14/2011 2:36:11 PM , Rating: 2
Episodes of Star Trek: TOS, which aired in the 1960s, averaged 50mins 30seconds.

Episodes of The Walking Dead average 44mins 22seconds for the first season, 42mins 46seconds during the second season.

Shows are definitely getting shorter.


RE: timing, duration, and number
By melgross on 12/14/2011 12:50:05 PM , Rating: 2
Its even worse than ever. I remember, when I was a kid, some years ago, that we had to jump out of the chair and run to the bathroom. We never made it back in time, because Ads were at most, two minutes long, and often just one minute. Now, they're five minutes.


RE: timing, duration, and number
By FITCamaro on 12/14/2011 3:31:23 PM , Rating: 3
So now you have time to wipe properly.


RE: timing, duration, and number
By chagrinnin on 12/14/2011 5:20:31 PM , Rating: 3
And wash your hands,...before makin' me a sammich.


RE: timing, duration, and number
By Spuke on 12/14/2011 6:33:35 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
before makin' me a sammich
LOL@Sammich! God, that never gets old.


I thought it wasn't the volume...
By Jeff7181 on 12/14/2011 1:30:30 PM , Rating: 2
I thought the volume of the commercials was already regulated and enforced, but advertisers find ways to get around that by messing with the equalization of the audio, creating the perception that the commercial is louder.




By sigmatau on 12/14/2011 2:30:30 PM , Rating: 2
Um no. Messing with equalizers actualy do affect volume. An equalizer simply allows you to turn up the volume of certain ranges.

Believe me, the change in volume is not an illusion. I hate diving for the remote late at night when a crazy loud commercial comes on. Some of them are at least double the program's volume.


By dgingerich on 12/14/2011 3:10:31 PM , Rating: 2
I know it's a big change in volume, not an illusion. The worst is Comedy Central. On my current TV, I watch the shows at a volume setting of 20, but when the commercials come on, I have to turn it down to 8 to get the same actual sound level out of it. It's totally out of control. (This also happens to be why I quit watching Comedy Central and most of my local stations. Well, that and the fact most of their shows suck.)


RE: I thought it wasn't the volume...
By Spuke on 12/14/2011 6:37:38 PM , Rating: 2
Not equalizing. They compress the sh!tz out of the audio.


By BugblatterIII on 12/14/2011 7:33:24 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly. Shows save 100% volume for things like the Earth blowing up; everything else is a lot quieter. So most of the time they only use a small portion of the full dynamic range.

Adverts use 100% volume constantly to shout "Buy me! Buy me!"

Hopefully what this bill means is that adverts won't be allowed to have anything over, say, 30%.

And hopefully the UK will follow suit, although to be fair the volume of adverts over here doesn't seem as obnoxious nowadays as it used to. Perhaps I'm finally going deaf...


Seriously?
By DN23 on 12/14/2011 2:54:51 PM , Rating: 2
Doesn't Congress have more pressing concerns than the audio volume of commercials?




RE: Seriously?
By FITCamaro on 12/14/2011 3:32:13 PM , Rating: 4
What you expect them to take care of important things like the budget?


RE: Seriously?
By Solandri on 12/15/2011 2:38:04 AM , Rating: 2
I suspect for the majority of voters, the volume of television commercials is more important to them than the budget.


Calm Act
By lowsidex2 on 12/14/2011 12:28:35 PM , Rating: 2
Lovely. Only took an entire year from when the CALM act was passed. The wheels are turning in molasses.




RE: Calm Act
By HrilL on 12/14/2011 1:38:15 PM , Rating: 2
We still have another year until it goes into effect.


RE: Calm Act
By chagrinnin on 12/14/2011 5:32:30 PM , Rating: 2
That's what gets me. Is this going to be after the end of the world? Why give them a whole year to turn the volume down? From the LA Times:

quote:
Dick O'Brien, an executive vice president of the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies, said Madison Avenue is in favor of the new rules. "We like it better when the public feels good about our ads," he said.


But let's be obnoxious and intrusive for one more year?


lol
By Silver2k7 on 12/15/2011 6:06:55 AM , Rating: 2
I recall back when commercials where introduced here in Sweden.

[b]We where told that you would hardly notice them, and commercials would only be in between programs.[/b]

Now as the topic for this article commercials have reached an obnoxious level.




RE: lol
By Silver2k7 on 12/15/2011 6:09:45 AM , Rating: 2
ehm ok should have read the article before commenting.

so it's the loudness issue they are doing something about.
thats all fine and dandy, but please do something about the obnoxious ammount of commercial breaks in the middle of a program.


RE: lol
By Fritzr on 12/15/2011 10:24:25 PM , Rating: 2
Viewers do that by not watching the channels with excessive advertising. As long as enough viewers are counted to keep the advertisers happy, the broadcaster has no reason to reduce the advertising time. On the contrary, they earn money by selling ad time. Reducing the number of commercials cuts into their revenue. Viewers pay the broadcaster nothing ... the broadcasters are paid by the advertisers.

The exception in US is PBS which is paid by viewers willing to bribe the station to reduce advertising and by "program sponsors" willing to bribe the station to insert a commercial announcement that includes a comment that the advertiser supports the program. PBS does insert highly intrusive fundraising campaigns for a few weeks each year, but those are cut short if the viewers cough up the requested budget fast enough :P

Use your remote control to tell the broadcasters you don't like their commercials. Stop watching the channels with the ads you don't like and maybe they will get the message :D


Yeah!
By danjw1 on 12/14/2011 12:13:53 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah! Go Congresswoman Eshoo!!! (I live in her district!)




RE: Yeah!
By KITH on 12/14/2011 8:38:19 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Eshoo!!!


Bless you


If only ...
By Scootie on 12/14/2011 12:14:31 PM , Rating: 2
I hope some similar bill will come to Europe as well.




RE: If only ...
By ShieTar on 12/16/2011 8:28:00 AM , Rating: 2
The basis for such bills has been created in europe this year, see http://tech.ebu.ch/groups/ploud .

As usual with the european system, it will take a while untill this is implemented through national laws.


This is good for both advertisers and viewers
By Lorfa on 12/15/2011 12:30:34 PM , Rating: 2
It makes it less likely that viewers will mute the commercials and therefore their advertisements will get through better.

I've been muting commercials for years though, but I know many that do not.




By No_City_Bum on 12/16/2011 12:20:19 AM , Rating: 2
Finally!
A law written that will not hurt the consumer..
BBBut why do they have to wait so long for this to go into effect?


By Nfarce on 12/14/2011 1:40:22 PM , Rating: 2
It may have been the early 80s. But some consumer group launched a complaint campaign about loud commercials on cable TV channels.

Some investigative committee in Washington I believe looked into it and funded a so-called study. Their conclusion was that it was an unwarranted complaint because there was no proof that the commercials were intentionally louder. The other part of that study even claimed that the commercials really weren't louder.

Needless to say, we all knew that was BS just sitting in front of the TV at home. Clearly some crooked politicians in Washington took some special interest money to shut this group up. This was all before the internet of course, so I doubt there's any info out there on this study. But good for this congressperson getting to the root of an issue we know has long been an annoyance.

Some cool commercials I'll actually turn up on purpose, like that Darth Vader kid VW commercial.




The truth is its you...
By nwgizmo on 12/14/2011 2:10:17 PM , Rating: 2
Channels like TBS and FX will back down the volume slowly in their programming a few minutes before the commercial is to come on, which makes you raise the volume. Now it really loud for them to play the same commercial over again, or an ad for some other program. So, you turn the volume down and when the program continue you are good again until the next commercial break...




Interesting ...
By ShieTar on 12/15/2011 7:20:50 AM , Rating: 2
I find it interesting that the US and the EU prepare the same law at exactly the same time on this topic. Normally I would assume this kind of coincidence is due to an international lobby, or caused by a big incident that outraged the public.

But what has triggered the decision to take care of this decades-old problem at the same time on both sides of the atlantic?




ORANGE CLEAN!!
By Namey on 12/15/2011 12:12:55 PM , Rating: 2
THE POWER OF ORANGESSS!!!! ARE YOU LISTENING?!! ORANGES... MAN... TOTALLY!!




About time
By lagomorpha on 12/16/2011 8:23:46 AM , Rating: 2
This is something I'm surprised networks didn't do on their own decades ago. And it's getting passed just after television networks became entirely obsolete for the technically inclined portion of the population.

Now if only someone would teach whoever makes the TED and Stanford videos to balance the volume level of the intro/exit music with that of the speaker. If you don't hit mute or pause on time and have decent speakers a quiet speaker will suddenly be replaced with an explosion that blows the walls off the room you're in.




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