FCC Passes Rules Against Excessively Loud TV Commercials

Los Angeles Times:

Excessively loud television commercials should be a thing of the past, thanks to the Federal Communications Commission.

Responding to years of complaints that the volume on commercials was much louder than that of the programming that the ads accompany, the FCC on Tuesday passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act to make sure that the sound level is the same for commercials and news and entertainment programming.

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[runpros]

09:17 PM on 12/16/2011

This is a win-win situation. The new regulation helps the advertisers and the broadcast companies by reducing the commercial volume to a level where the information can be processed by the viewer. It also now removes any of the negative association that the loud and obnoxious noise had to the product being sold. It will be great to watch shows without feeling dizzy for once. I can't believe the idiots at FOX don't know the first thing about simple business practices. It got to the point where I had to keep the remote control in my hand and press mute at every commercial break. Now, I'll be able to watch the commercials. I had actually become afraid to turn on to FOX.

[klwarner]

07:21 PM on 12/14/2011

It's insane that it took this long to get here. Next can they work on figuring out why the sound output from my Wii is 3x louder than my TV?

[loki]

01:14 AM on 12/15/2011

because the Wii audio preamp is set louder maybe, But cant you just turn it down when you turn he wii on? thats not an FCC problem. they dont regulate video games.

[klwarner]

12:10 PM on 12/15/2011

Oh, I was being facetious. I know they don't do that. It's just annoying how much louder the Wii is than everything else. I'm gonna figure out that preamp thing though, thanks.

[marignymitch]

02:12 PM on 12/14/2011

My expectation for the success of this measure is low; the noisiest commerials here are those produced by the cable carrier itself.

[imonlyhereforthelaughs]

01:23 PM on 12/14/2011

Did I miss the part where the budget had been balanced, the wars ended and poverty eliminated?

[DickTater]

01:18 PM on 12/14/2011

For those people wailing for smaller govt:
You keep spitting the words "federal government" and "big government" like poison. You claim it never did anything right, etc.

It's a little like blaming your folks for everything. "Yeah, well if Dad hadn't been such a ....blah blah blah". Smart people get sick of hearing your one-size-fits-all crap. It doesn't change anything. It's juvenile. It's not patriotic.

Your government is vital and necessary, and it is the one we've got. By your definitions, NO government is what you want. Any large organization is going to stagnate and be somewhat wasteful. We need to be rescuing our government from the Corporate takeover, not cutting the last, only things it does for the avg. citizen.

[kahalaman]

02:56 PM on 12/14/2011

Well said.

[drumz]

12:46 PM on 12/14/2011

How come a Republicon didn't push for this legislation? Oh, that's right, it doesn't affect the rich because as we all know, they are the job creators so I'm sure they have volume serfs standing by ready to lower the volume as soon as a obnoxiously loud commercial comes on.

[trulyblessed]

11:34 AM on 12/14/2011

Too bad that commercials themselves are not a thing of the past. Shameless pitches to induce and encourage consumption, that is no longer sustainable.

[chaucer1]

11:31 AM on 12/14/2011

Too many commercials, too.

[AccezzTom]

11:16 AM on 12/14/2011

If I bother to turn the television on while I am alone in the house ( a rare event), the mute button is my best friend where commercials are concerned. I never watch them anyway - I have a laptop computer. Politicians get ignored as a rule. It will be good to have these pain in the rear-end commercials and the sound turned down when I am not alone in the place, particularly when politicians and their filthy ads attacking each other appear.

[Shaun Hensley]

03:33 PM on 12/14/2011

When I still watched programming through a television, I used the commercial breaks to leave the couch and do things, when the commercial was over, I knew the program I wanted to watch was back on. Muting doesn't fix that, what would happen is that I'd start doing something else and forget I was watching television. ;)

[SoulOfWit]

11:14 AM on 12/14/2011

I use a DVR. No more thunder-mercials I use a Flash blocker on my computer. If the ad is annoying then it will be ignored.

[smmrselysummers]

11:13 AM on 12/14/2011

and Thank goodness. Never fails I'm watching in the middle of the night when everyone else in the house is asleep and I have to constantly monitor the remote. This didn't used to happen back in the bad old days. I read recently that marketers started doing this because the figured that viewers left the room during commercials and this way they could still hear about the product being hawked. Sorry advertisers, I just mute the tv.

[lynn1219]

11:12 AM on 12/14/2011

Why does it take 2 years to pass a simple piece of legislation. Maybe to buy some more time for the corporations that run these loud, tasteless ads to make a little more money. We mute all commercials.

[anthonyparker80]

11:12 AM on 12/14/2011

Again, we applaud when being screwed. The Difference in sound level was the only way commercial zappers knew how to zap them.

[homer2000]

11:08 AM on 12/14/2011

I read about this a year or so ago that they passed the law and wondered what happened to it. It would be also good to regulate time on ads vs actual programming.

[ge971]

11:07 AM on 12/14/2011

About time, thank you President Obama's FCC.