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Put down that remote! A new law that goes into effect Thursday says that commercials cannot be more than 2 decibels louder than the programming around them.
TV fans, you're about to get a break from your commercial break.
Shouting TV ads are soon to become a thing of the past as a new law goes into effect Thursday at midnight mandating that the volume of commercials has to be within a range of 2 decibels (db) more or less than the programming around them.
Joe Addalia, director of technology projects for Hearst Television, was in charge of figuring out the right technology to make 31 transmitters compliant with the new regulations. He told TODAY that 2 db was "the difference between viewers reaching for the remote and not." TV stations want to encourage watchers to leave the remote alone, he said, "because right next to the volume button is the channel button."
Commercials are often so loud because the only real limit on programming volumes is the one set by stations so that the sound levels don't damage their equipment. That level, however, represents a peak sound meant to accommodate for when something like a gunshot or explosion goes off during a show. Advertising content creators routinely crank the sound of their ads to just shy of that peak level, so the entire commercial is playing at the equivalent of a 30-second bomb blast.
Joel Kelsey, legislative director for the media advocacy group Free Press, previously testified in Congress about the need for volume regulation on commercials. Since nearly the beginning of television itself, loud commercials "have consistently been one of the issues consumers are most energized to write the FCC about. They don't like being screamed at every time the program breaks to buy deodorant," Kelsey told TODAY.
However, it took an act of Congress, the "Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act," or CALM Act, to prod the FCC into the necessary action. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate.
While station operators across the country have been busy implementing new volume-limiting controls, many viewers already have technology in their TV sets to dampen the auditory enthusiasm of "Crazy Carl's Car Shack" and "Head-On, APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!"
In a TV set's audio control settings, there may be a selection for "Automatic Volume control" or "Auto Volume" that once selected automatically smooths out the peaks and valleys in the volume. If you don't have the feature built in, you can purchase an external device such as this Audiovox Terk VR1 Automatic TV Volume Controller, found on Amazon for $21.99.
It's worth mentioning what tools consumers have at their hands, besides the mute button, because with so many moving pieces involved, you can be sure that some loud ads will get through. The FCC encourages viewers to report any rogue ads to 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-225-5322).
More information:
Starting today, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, better known as the "Calm Act," will go into effect, meaning the volume on those pesky commercials will lower.
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About time! It was really annoying and what was even more annoying was knowing the reason why they were doing it. To manipulate you into buying something. They even do it on Radio now.
It's worse then a Telemarketer or Robo call at Dinner time.
Advertising on TV should be illegal, since we have to pay for TV in the first place. It is like getting charged twice. I DVR, watch online, or download and watch EVERYTHING. I NEVER watch live TV - especially news, as most of it is simply using the misfortune of others for entertainment. I watch little besides public television anymore, since most everything on commercial TV is an insult to anyone with any intelligence at all anyway.
I agree; I especially hate the blocks of inofmercials on cable. We are already paying to watch cable (which back in the time of Noah was commercial-free); now we have to pay to watch not only commercials, but also several hours of infomercials every day. Ridiculous!
Right On! If you pay for T.V., there should be Zero Commercials!
So if they gave you the option to pay 4 times as much and have commercial free TV you would gladly fork up the money??
That logic is called Reference Pricing. Its another scam used by the annoying tv salesmen. Right up there with overpricing the chopping off 1 payment if you order in the next 10 minutes. Call, call, call. ;)
Project for next year.....stopping that "lower your interest rate" robo call.
And the ..".there is nothing wrong with your account"... call. There is nothing wrong with your account that they can't fix by selling you something.
oh.....I am so damned tired of getting those calls. Now I hang on the line and wait for them to actually answer.....and then let loose. 4 letters, sometimes 5. And usually...click....they hang up.
I've asked them to remove my number from tehir database - and the calls keep coming from the same jerks....so nasty break if I ruined someone's day. Maybe they will go find a different job.....
I find it hard to believe it's even cost effective to do it. I don't get them because I no longer have a land line (and they don't seem to call cells (although I have had text solicitations, pisses me off)). Does anybody really EVER buy whatever they are selling?
Bad news mark, They dial random nbrs. As soon as you answered you confirmed that they had a working number and sold you all over the internet. Its the same as replying to spam. You're totally screwed now.
sometime when i get the calls, i turn the tables on them.
1st i had an airhorn i would blast them with after talking softer and softer and quieter and quieter so then i thought they really had the phone pushed into their ear i would give a good blast of the airhorn. when i got back on line they weren't!!!!
2nd) i would talk to them and let them figure out i was playing with myself all the while (i wasn't really, but they didn't know that!) which creeped out the men and the women. so they would hang up on ME!!!! which really hurt my feelings, terribly. they called me, so tough ti%%y!!
Will the Teaparty scream... Get your Federal Guvment job killing regulations out of my commercials? If they don't sell as much crap because the volume is down then people will get layed off. Job killing regulations I tell ya.....
I don't watch TV anymore, but back when I did I thought there should be a signal sent out during commercials that your TV would key on to automatically mute if feature was enabled.
I can't say that a commercial EVER motivated me to purchase anything. EVER.
Back when I worked at a TV station, the local grocery store chain "motivated" us to crank up the color saturation (possibly exceeding legal limits;) so that the tomatoes looked super ripe and red. How is that for honesty in advertising.
i have absolutely no problem taking anything back to the store i did not like, fruit, vegs, meat, anything. and i always get my money back.
gee, these tomatoes never got ripe before they spoiled. the meat tastes funny, the apricotes were bagged wrong and got smashed on the way home. this fish was NOT fresh (several times at whole foods!!! and this was even after i asked the guy to smell it to make sure it was fresh!!! guess he couldn't smell!!! when i got it home it smelled so bad i almost tossed my cookies. and no, i don't rush back the same day or even the same week. but i do have my receipt!)
try it and they will straighten up and give you better service. and will respect you for not taking their garbage.
What's a snipe and a channel bug? lol
Snipes and bugs are those little things that are on the screen during the actual program. Like a channel logo or a ticker tape across the bottom. Or the little thing that pops in saying what is on next. Sometimes they are pretty elaborate and distracting.
To: Cheralinn, #34 and Enough-2735007, #34.1
Thanks for the question and answer. I hate the snipes as they, often, cover up much of the screen. I have an old-fashioned, CRT (cathode ray tube and I can, pretty much, forget the video actions in the bottom third of the screen. These snipes are truly horrible during football games; they are quite juvenile, in fact.
I don't mind the channel bugs as long as they are small and do not cover important aspects of the programming.
You can read more about channel bugs at Wikipedia's "Digital_on-screen_graphic" without the quote marks, of course.
for dogs and bugs i use post-its to block out that corner of the screen. with a large enough screen, you don't miss much of what is going on.
and sometimes i just use tin foil and scotch tape to cover the whole bottem if there are crawls.
2 dB is a significant difference, especially when the advertisers can take the loudest moment of a TV show (the car crash, the explosion, whatever) and then amplify the commercials by that 2 dB. I don't expect to hear much of a difference, so I will just continue skipping commercials.
You should, too.
Anyone else notice that:
1> Top complaint with FCC - but advertisers still cranked it up. Nobody there willing to do the 'right' thing.
2> Our overpaid Congress has to pass a 'law' to get the advertisers to do the 'right' thing....and it only took them 50 years to do it!
3> We are going over the cliff in 18 days. I doubt Congress can even get up out of their chairs in 18 days - unless there is a free meal/perk from some advertiser.....
Oh...and I dumped DishTV for a good ol' roof mount antenna. Same BS commercials - but at least I don't have to pay for them anymore. But I got more entertainment yanking that dish out of the ground with my tractor and a chain then all the movies they ever provided!!
we have lived with our remote at hand's reach just to mute -- drives us nuts to listen to loud commercials -
I think that was the secet intent in the invention of the remote control. Before they even considered that you wouldn't have to actually get up to change the channel.
It's Obama's fault...
This will be like the "do not call" list. Make a complaint to a government agency and they will just brush you off.
Like the credit agency thing they're doing now. All they do is submit a complaint for you. You're still stuck with the same "screw you" customer service morons as if you'd done that yourself.
Unlikely it's going to have much effect. There are a lot of games that can be played to keep the commercials loud, but still meeting the words of the law. No doubt the broadcast engineers will figure out a way.
What's the point of expensive ad production and costly air time when it's so loud everyone hits the mute button, thus not getting the intended message? What a waste, and all that money is a portion of profit. Between that, and the gazillions spent on political ads, there is so much good that could be done, but no... it's just wasted on absolutely nothing!
Let's hear the whining from right wing idiots. get to it
So far the only idiot posting here is you.
Thinking of getting rid of cable and my TV all at once. What the hell is on TV worth watching anyway. If I want the News, Weather, Movies, etc. I just go on the computer and get it. I figure I will save at least Fifteen Hundred buck a year. my neighbor hasn't had a TV for twenty years and says he doesn't miss it one bit.
Switched to internet TV couple yrs ago. Got a roku just be be fancy for netflix and amazon. I havent missed any shows or the monthly bill.
As annoying as commercials may be, everyone has to realize that those companies pay the bills. Without them there would only be PBS & government type programming.
pbs is just fine with me. i seem to watch it more and more and the other shi# less and less.
even pro football on tv is getting to be a real hasstle. one guy would just talk and talk and talk and talk, but he is gone now.
and all the stats they go into, yeah, like that is a lot of fun!!!!
one last thing, am i the only one who does NOT like women sports announcers???
We have many freedoms in this country, but no freedom from commerce. We get junk mail even if we don't ask for it, spam even if we don't request it, someone else gets to decide how loud our TV is going to be and when (even now they can jack up the volume 2 decibals). Its kind of amazing when you step back and appreciate how big business runs this country and our lives.
The Internet is getting worse. Every time a video plays the volume is jacked way up!
I use an ad-blocker on the internet. I highly recommend it. And I turn off my sound when I surf. I had a set of speakers blown once, because of a loud video.
Manufacturers can put a limiter or limiter/compressor on the TV's audio board. Stereo equipment can also have limiter/compressors. Problem solved. Why does society always turn to laws to solve every problem? If government really has the time to be worrying about crap this trivial then government has clearly gotten too large.
Thank you, thank you, thank you
I have more or less stopped watching TV. I doubt I watch more than 4 hrs a week now, if that. Probably more like 2. And its for 2 reasons.
1) Commercials, loudness is just one of the annoyances. If im paying for cable, they should not need commercials.
2) Crappy programming, and low selection. Often its the same crap over and over. Week after week. One station plays Star wars movies all weekend long, every damn weekend almost. Hint: The entire planet has seen them now, hundreds of times.
Its no wonder people are dumping TV, and so many are downloading. Its the only way you can see anything you actually want to see. And without a billion blaring loud commercials every 5 mins..
For some bizarre reason if I'm flipping through the channels and hit a Pirates of the Caribbean movie I stop and watch the rest of it, no matter how much I've missed. No matter that I own them and can watch them whenever I want (without ads). It's the weirdest thing (actually National Treasure movies will halt me in my tracks as well). There are probably people that are the same way with the Star Wars movies.
Ah, c'mon. This is how I get my exercise. I keep the remote control between my toes!