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"Loud Commercial" Legislation Proposed In US Congress

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-have-my-grandmother's-vote dept.

Hackajar writes "Have you ever caught yourself running for the volume control when a TV commercial comes on? Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) has, and is submitting legislation that would require TV commercials in the US to stay at volume levels similar to the programming they are associated with. From the article: 'Right now, the government doesn't have much say in the volume of TV ads. It's been getting complaints ever since televisions began proliferating in the 1950s. But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials.'"

21 of 636 comments (clear)

  1. I'd much rather... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hate loud commercials too, but this is just too much government IMHO. I'd much rather just have intelligent TVs or receivers that turned the volume down upon detecting a commercial...based on the settings *I* want, not what the government thinks is best for me.

    --
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    1. Re:I'd much rather... by Lehk228 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My father's old rear projection TV was a Magnavox with Smart Sound. it wasn't perfect and you probably want to turn it off during movies, but it did a pretty good job.

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    2. Re:I'd much rather... by Kryptonian+Jor-El · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So you'd rather have to pay more for your TV then to just force the networks to stop being assholes?

      If *you* want loud commercials, then turn your TV up louder. I'm tired of the networks jacking the commercial sound up, its bullshit and I shouldn't have to be responsible for fixing it. If I have the movie or TV show at 70 dB, I want the commercials at 70 dB as well.

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    3. Re:I'd much rather... by Kryptonian+Jor-El · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What principle? You, as a consumer, have no power in this. Every broadcaster does it, and even if some didn't, you can't "vote with your wallet" short of just not paying for TV. Regulation is good, especially in monopolistic situations

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    4. Re:I'd much rather... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Firstly, this is not a monopolistic situation, it is closer to an oligopoly.

      Secondly, regulation is only good if what it regulates has a more negative effect on the economy than the increased government expenditures (which translates into higher taxation). I cannot see that this is proven to be the case; what negative impacts do loud commercials have vs. introduction of new laws which must be enforced using resources that may have been used elsewhere?

      Just because you are 'tired of it' does not mean we should raise our taxes to appease you.

      --
      I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
    5. Re:I'd much rather... by canajin56 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Using the same reasoning as the law in TFA: Ads are loud as fuck. Thus, any time it fails to skip an ad, it wasn't an obnoxiously loud ad to begin with, so your eardrums are likely intact. While you might say "What about loud bits of shows like explosions!?" no, they've got nothing on ads. I'd watch BSG, loud explosions, etc. Then it goes to ads. "MY LITTLE PONY" is screamed at a volume that absolutely dwarfs the loudest things in the show itself. It's been getting worse lately. Compression can't really make ads any louder than it already has, so the networks are actually turning the shows down more and more so you crank your TV and will get absolutely BLASTED by ads. I don't know why, its making it more and more desirable to skip them.

      --
      ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
    6. Re:I'd much rather... by haibijon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Regulation is bad. Period.

      Yep. No regulation has done a great job historically, just look at the economy. I mean, how else are we supposed to have things like price-fixing and monopolies. Seriously though, why does everything have to be black and white. Personally, I think regulation has a place, but in moderation, where it makes sense. Unfortunately though, no regulation only works when people can regulate themselves, which doesn't appear to be reality.

      If the masses stood up and said "we'll support the station that doesn't have loud ads", then those broadcasters would eventually listen. ... The loudness of advertising is none of the states business.

      That would work if they didn't all do it. Unfortunately I've never seen/heard of a broadcaster who does this, and it appears that many of the commenters haven't. Instead of just saying "regulation bad!", why not be constructive and provide an example?

    7. Re:I'd much rather... by scot4875 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Similarly, if you have loud neighbors, you should just move and boycott the loud neighbors. Get rid of your HOA rules or local ordinances, because they clearly have a negative impact by being enforced -- in fact, they require even more enforcement than this proposed rule would: local police have to enforce noise rules, whereas this would be a simple, network-level enforced rule, easy to monitor and issue fines for offenders.

      So, clearly, this proposed legislation is a bad idea, and noise ordinances are a bad idea as well.

      Sarcasm aside, it sure would be nice if the broadcasting industry could have come together and implemented something like this to begin with. It would be really nice if they'd just said, "ok, hey, we're going to normalize our content so that typical conversation will play at 50dB. Commercials will be compressed to have a maximum volume of 55dB." Then I wouldn't have to readjust the volume every time I changed channels, or be blasted out of the room when I have the volume set high for a quiet show on a quiet network, then flip channels and hit a Dodge truck ad on Spike. I guess the invisible hand of the free market hasn't sorted that one out yet.

      --Jeremy

      --
      Jesus was a liberal
    8. Re:I'd much rather... by AnotherUsername · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You obviously have no idea how the current recession came about. A huge part of it was the deregulation of various markets, coupled with a hands-off approach to markets such as OTC-derivatives, (all in the name of the free market working things out), that allowed the various financial industries to bring us into this mess. Even Greenspan, long a proponent of the hands-off approach, has said(albeit in the aftermath of the meltdown), that he was wrong, and that regulation is needed.

      The market will not come up a solution for this, because it is the market that is doing it.

      As far as has government regulation ever really worked, enjoy those basic worker's rights, as well as not being forced to work in a factory since you were 3 years old. Enjoy having a choice in a phone company, instead of being tied to Ma Bell. Enjoy having clean air. Enjoy not being banned from a store based on the color of your skin, your last name, your religion, your age, or your sex. Enjoy all those basic rights that you have because the government has stepped in and regulated something in your life.

      For every bad law, there are five good laws. Believe it or not, the government is not out to get you through regulation.

      --
      I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
    9. Re:I'd much rather... by AnotherUsername · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Every, single, time that the government does one thing right for its people, five more laws will be passed reducing that victory because of laws to "help" the people "wronged" by that law.

      You keep posting this. Citation, please, or quit posting it. Without a real citation, what you are posting is utter nonsense.

      --
      I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
    10. Re:I'd much rather... by Z34107 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In defense of the advertisers, how are they supposed to know how loud the commercials should be?

      They aren't. The network is.

      Now, nobody's saying that marketers are less than human and deserve to be marched into the ocean, but there's no reason why the network can't apply some volume normalization. Or why the network has to purposefully crank up the relative volume of their ads. Or why televisions or HTPCs can't do volume normalization.

      --
      DATABASE WOW WOW
    11. Re:I'd much rather... by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They could sample a random amount of tv and find the correct volume, instead they make the commercials super loud. This is why people use ad blockers and stuff like myth's auto-commercial skip. If the advertisers had not become obnoxious these things would not be so popular.

      I would be more than happy to buy television shows at the cost the advertisers pay for my set of eyeballs. Stations charge around $20 per thousand viewers for a 30 second spot. So the average 1 hour program has about 17 minutes worth of adds*, meaning 34 30 second add spots. $20/1000 * 34 = $0.68.

      That is what I would be willing to pay to watch commercial free tv online, any higher and I will use netflix, torrents or pvrs to get my commercial free tv episodes.

      *based off the nonscientific method of average length to watch tv episodes on dvd

    12. Re:I'd much rather... by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Regulation is bad. Period.

      Why? Because Ronald Reagan said so? What do you think caused the current financial mess?

      The loudness of advertising is none of the states business.

      The state's business is whatever the voters say it is. If you don't like what they're regulating, go vote for someone else.

      --
      Drill baby drill - on Mars
    13. Re:I'd much rather... by Nemyst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Instead of defining a peak level, define an average level? Most shows would have a pretty standard average, but commercials would get raped by it and would actually come out as quieter until they stopped being compressed.

  2. What is a Commercial? by neonprimetime · · Score: 3, Insightful

    dvr

  3. No fair way to write regulations? by t0qer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You take the average gain of the last 30 seconds of a program before it goes to commercial, and don't allow the commercials to be any louder than that.

    If I can make karaoke and techno music automatically crossfade with my meager skills(link below)

    http://www.facebook.com/v/203775860215

    Then surely a TV station or broadcast network could make commercials stay at the same gain as the programming.

  4. Re:How about... by idontgno · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But the FCC concluded in 1984 there was no fair way to write regulations controlling the "apparent loudness" of commercials.'" ...every time my wife yells at me to "turn down that damned TV" because commercial suddenly starts blasting, the advertising executive for that commercial gets a 24 kvolt shock?

    There, FTFY.

    Yes, I know the chances of surviving a 24 kilovolt shock are pretty low, but I'm willing to risk it.

    Why, yes, I'm not an advertising executive. And yes, I do hate those God-awful advertisements. How could you tell?

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  5. Re:Wow, something about this seems freaky. by bennomatic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To be fair, what you're doing is almost a Godwin. The huge majority of what Congress does pales in comparison in many ways when put next to wars, and even health care. But many of those things need to be considered, even with bigger, more important things going on.

    If you support or decry this proposed law, do so on its own merits. Otherwise, we may as well compare everything to the wars and to healthcare, and ignore a huge range of very real issues which need resolution.

    --
    The CB App. What's your 20?
  6. How about certain noises? by Tobor+the+Eighth+Man · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about banning radio stations from broadcasting commercials with car crash sounds, police sirens, and screeching tires during the morning and afternoon drive times? That nonsense has made me jump out of my damn seat a couple times, now.

    Also, on a less serious note, ban commercials from using that one blaring alarm clock stock sound that they all love to use. You know, the one that sounds exactly like the alarm clock I had for years, and always makes me feel miserable and pissed off.

  7. Easy fix by Spit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Stop watching TV.

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    POKE 36879,8
  8. Re:Audio Compression by BluBrick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem actually occurs when the commercial is edited down during filming and production. This is where the sound is Compressed which essentially brings all of the Lower volume portions of the sound Up to much higher volumes often equaling the the Higher volume portions of the sound. This is not really any louder. The highest levels are not affected so it's not actually louder, but since the lower volumes have been pumped up, it appears to be louder.

    This is exactly the sort of bullshit excuse that broadcasters/advertisers will use to get around any legislation introduced. "The ads really aren't any louder than the content, they only sound louder." Well guess what? THERE'S NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE! Their audience is people, not sound meters, so it does not matter what their instruments read - if the ads sound louder to human ears, then they really are louder.

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