FCC to ban loud TV ads

Written by

Consumer Reports:

The Federal Communications Commission will pass regulations today to limit the volume levels of TV commercials and penalize broadcasters that bombard consumers with loud ads between televised shows and programs.

We live in a fairly small house with interior walls that have an unfortunate tendency to reflect noise, and quite often if we’re up late watching TV, the sound of the ads will wake one or more of our kids up. So I was delighted to learn about the CALM act and that it would soon be the law to quiet these ads down, because they’re obnoxious.


  • Steven Fisher

    Was watching a show I’d recorded from GlobalTV (in Canada) a few nights ago. The ads were at least twice as loud as the content.

    Since I watch nearly everything off the PVR these days, that just guaranteed that I didn’t watch any of the ads. Normally, I wouldn’t've been so vigilant, but that night I was totally aware that if I let an ad appear it would probably wake up my vomitous kid.

  • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

    I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! WHAT GREAT NEWS!

  • Anonymous

    I doubt it will make much difference. The way that loudness is defined, ads are not considered loud. Programs have a high dynamic range, from soft dialogue to loud explosions. All the ads have to is not be louder than the explosions.

    I hear that some receivers have a nighttime mode that shrinks the range, so you can still hear the dialogue and not wake the house with sudden explosions. Or ads.

  • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

    We need a bill like this in Germany, like yesterday.
    Wait no, I don’t care since I don’t own a TV.

    But in all seriousness, this is one of the reasons I hate TV and this needs to stop.