A Year After Ban On Loud TV Commercials: Has It Worked?

netbuzz writes "It's been a year since the FCC implemented the CALM Act, a law that prohibits broadcasters from blasting TV commercials at volumes louder than the programming. Whether the ban has worked or not depends on who you ask. The FCC notes that formal complaints about overly loud commercials are on the decline in recent months, but those complaints have totaled more than 20,000 over the past year."

Comments

loud quiet loud quiet

[Anonymous Coward]

It says that on average they must be the same audio level as the programming.
So, they yell, then there is a pause and then someone else yells at you.

Re:loud quiet loud quiet

[L4m3rthanyou]

What I'm noticing lately is that they'll mix the commercial audio "creatively" to increase its effective volume. I'll be watching a show on cable with 5.1 audio (so, mostly dialogue out of the center speaker), then have a commercial come on and pipe all its audio through both front speakers, at the "maximum" volume. The levels are probably about the same, but it still gets that "attention jolt" from the perceived increase in volume.

The other annoying trend is the use of excessive "wub wub" (bass) in ad music. Result is the same, increased distraction without "excessive" volume.

Re:loud quiet loud quiet

[linebackn]

Another skummy thing I have seen on at least a few instances, a show will reach some climatic scene with important dialog, and before the main character's voice even trails offTOYOTA SAVING!

The issue has moved to the Internet

[alfrin]

Now that I exclusively use online streaming services to watch television shows, I find the commercial volume issues there are far more irritating than I ever experienced on actual television. Spotify is the worst culprit, since it PAUSES the commercial if you lower your system volume. You cannot even avoid the obnoxiously loud commercials there.

Re:The issue has moved to the Internet

[fermion]

I tend to mute my computer during commercials, especially now that the commercials can run into 3 minutes.

I wonder if the advertisers realize that a commercial on streaming is not the same as a commercial on TV. That a three minute break on TV is ok. After all, if one is watching live TV one can wander around the house and still probably hear the TV, hear the commercial, and get back in time for the show, even if you have to do a live rewind. If you are watching recorded TV, most of the time you can fast forward which means that if a commercial is well made you are at least seeing the branding.

OTOH, since the ads on streaming has become more than a minute, I tend to mute and do something else, then back up the content if I miss something. I have heard TV executives screaming about how mad they are that they can only sell a fraction of advertising on streaming that they can on TV. But what is going to happen when advertisers realize that nobody is going to hand around for three minutes to watch the ads? Probably the same thing that happened to web sites when ad people realized that banner ads were being ignored.

Re:The issue has moved to the Internet

[tlhIngan]

I torrent ("pirate") shows and I never have any of these problems. Ever. I'd rather use a service like that but not when they go out of their way to be annoying. You cannot irritate me into buying something. You can't scream at me into buying something. You can be un-obnoxious and treat me with respect and maybe I'll be more receptive to the sales pitch. Till they figure that out, it's pirate bay for me baby.

Except they can take your show off the air because of poor ratings.

Here's a secret - the ratings you see for public viewing by Neilsen is one of three numbers - Live, Live+Same Day, or Live+7 Day. But NONE of these numbers are used by stations when determining if a show is worthwhile to continue or to cancel.

Stations buy the C3 numbers - Commericals Only 3 Day numbers. The huge difference is the L/L+SD/L+7 numbers average the ratings minute-by-minute of the entire program. The C+3 numbers include the minute-by-minute ratings of the commercial breaks only - the programming ratings are NOT included. Basically the ratings stations use measure only the ads - the content is there to attract eyeballs to the ads.

Now, the only correlation is that C+3 ratings are generally very close (usually within 0.1 or 0.2) of the L+SD number.

So TV execs are perfectly happy to ignore piracy - because those people never generate revenue, they have no influence (remember the programming is there to attract eyeballs to see ads). If a show is heavily pirated, it depresses the ratings down and the show either gets its budget cut, or cancelled.

Of course, sometimes the shows still sell ads - in product placement. And it's been shown that even syndicated shows that they have product placement ads inserted into the scene - advertising stuff that wasn't even available when the show originally aired.

The other way is subscriber TV - like how Netflix, Amazon, etc are having their own TV series paid for by subscription dollars.

Re:TV at negative extra charge

[anagama]

I just get the internet without TV.

The reason I gave up any sort of connection originally was because I'd wake up on a weekend, and then mindlessly flip channels never finding anything I wanted to watch, and feeling frustrated. I wasted a lot of beautiful days in this fashion. Kind of like how a heroin addict has to give it up completely, I decided I didn't want to waste my life watching stuff that was bad to begin with, and worse, interspersed with commercials.

So anyway, yes, I pay a little more for my internet but I only watch what I actually want to watch, and I watch it on my schedule. The few extra bucks are worth it to me because like any hardcore drug addict, if I had TV I'd watch it, hate it, waste time, feel frustrated, and not be able to stop. I'm simply not able to be a casual watcher -- even when I go to friends' places, if they have the TV on, I just get totally sucked in and mesmerized by it. For people who can use it reasonably, it makes a lot of sense to save a few bucks. For me though, that would be a disaster.