ARE commercials quieter?

Back in 2008 Anna G. Eshoo (D-Palo Alto) introduced the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM Act) to address loud commercials.

Did it work?

I tend to say NO, or maybe some. My dad says he has indeed noticed a reduction in loudness, although as he pointed out, "an annoying, shouting commercial, especially Hispanic car dealers, is still going to be an annoying, shouting commercial."

What do you think?

I still think she should have heeded my advice to simply limit the peak loudness of commercials to -6 dbFS or -10 dBFS, but that train is long gone.

 

I think they have tweaked them to make them more shrill and gated out certain frequencies, but the volume may in fact have been lowered to comply with law.

My biggest problem is the amount of commercials, especially for other shows. They kept upping the percentage of ads to show as they cut bits or speed up older shows, and cut from British shows like crazy to get the eight minutes of ads in regardless of whether they can sell eight minutes in all markets. They should charge more for fewer spots and people wouldn't flip or hit mute. Penny-wise but pound foolish as always.

 

I've been watching FX a lot lately ("Taboo" & "Legion"), and I can assure you...
the commercials are LOUDER!
My wife falls asleep during the shows, then the commercials wake her right up!
She says, "Why do you have it so loud?".....
Show comes back on, she goes right back to sleep!

 

I'd say sometimes the commercials are louder, and depending on the channel, the shows are quieter - I have to crank the volume to insane levels just to hear the dialog, then frantically use the remote to lower the volume for commercial breaks.

FX is a channel where I have crank up the show volume.

 

I say that since the laws were changed there is a noticeable change in volume of a majority of the commercials I get hit with. A few of the "local cable" ads seem to fly under the radar. I am sensitive to this because I frequently fall asleep with the TV on. I still have cable and there are settings on the box to allow for varying dynamics depending on the output.

 

I've posted in other threads how I wish that TV manufacturers would add a "half-mute" or "3/4-mute" function/button to the remote design.

This would allow you to quickly and efficiently reduce the commercial's volume, but leave it up just enough so you could hear it, and know when the program resumed, without having to constantly watch the screen (as you do when you use the standard full-mute).

Then when the program returns, you remove the partial-mute, and you're volume is right back where you like it for the show.

 

I used to hate when the commercials came on blasting louder than the program content. Then I got a DVR, have hardly seen/heard a commercial since then (almost never watch live tv.)

 

There are just way too many on TV right now.

 

Maybe less volume, but have you seen a Carl's Jr. commercial lately? Or Reese's PB cups?

jerol

 

Commercial loudness cure=
Netflix

 

Reason #3 I rarely watch TV: Commercials. Loud, soft or medium.

 

Two things I hate about commercial breaks:

1) there seems to have been a policy change with several networks where now they have very little black inbetween commercials, sometimes to the point where it just cuts from one commercial to the next, which I find disconcerting. I won't watch live TV, so I just fast-forward through it, but this is just weird.

2) promos for new shows are apparently not subject to the loudness rule, and those are bloody loud. Heck, often the "next week on" promos for the next episode of a show are quite a bit louder than the show itself. AMC is particularly guilty of this.

 

My old Toshiba 40" TV remote has 1/2 mute and it works well to kill the overly loud parts.
It's a bit hard to find the tiny button in the dark......

 

Advertisements' in UK seem to be as loud IF not louder..don't tend to watch as much Terrestrial TV anyone.. Netflix been getting lot of use, just wish Menu,Categories etc could be changed.

 

It's just a matter of time before commercials infiltrate Netflix and other streaming services as well. Commercials used to be relegated to network television, as that was their means of making money. Non-network cable television was supposed to be commercial free once upon a time as the customer is paying for the service, advertising dollars were not supposed to be necessary. Well, now there are just as many commercials on cable channels as network, if not more. So the cable channels make money off of customers and advertisers both. (Of course, in many cases so do local network affiliates). Rest assured that Netflix and the like will follow suit eventually.

 

Similar to PBS. They never used to have commercials or promos, just a once per year pledge drive.

Now, they have promos all the time (that are just as obnoxious as commercial TV), and under the guise of donator credits, they have short high quality commercials (clearly produced by the donator's agency). And of course pledge drives have increased to (seems like) 4 to 6 times per year.

 

My TV has an "equalization" setting, which effectively makes all volumes the same. So, I'm not hearing louder commercials. But from what I'm reading here, the Loudness Mitigation Rule works as well as the Do Not Call Registry.

 

I don't think so. One of the main selling points of Netflix is no commercials, they would be stupid to go away from that.

 

I hope you're right.

 

They got a lot quieter once Billy Mays died.

 

Since I got my DVR commercials are not only a lot quieter, but infinitely faster.

 

This is something I was acutely aware of when I was a master control operator. The people who inserted the next-time promos and the barter commercials in the syndicated shows (we called them "built-in") usually made them way louder than the program itself. We would try to be conscientious about the volume of the local spots, but those barters would just blare!

 

Same here. I'm not adverse to stopping and going back and watching a commercial in real-time if it's interesting, but it doesn't happen as much today as it used to.

Yeah, I also ran master control for a year or two when I worked in local TV in Tampa -- that's a very stressful job, but I enjoyed the challenge. In those days (1970s), our audio processing was so aggressive with Volumax, nothing overly-loud ever made it to the transmitter. Nowadays, it's a lot more slippery because of the amount of automation and digital files.

I think FOX is a big offender in the "overly-loud promo" department; ABC, CBS, and NBC are generally pretty good.

 

I remember when the dream of cable/pay TV included ZERO commercials.

 

My cable box (fios) claims to make all content sound the same volume -presumably squashing the dynamic range. I can turn it on/off when I want to, but I usually leave it on, because I don't really care about the dynamic range of my television set.