I'm not usually big on government regulation, but I'm down with making it against the law to crank up the volume of commercials on television relative to the volume levels of the actual shows. A new bill approved by The House Communications Subcommittee attempts to do just that.
Via Broadcasting & Cable with a hat tip to our friend Chris Albrecht at NewTeeVee:
Eshoo said the bill premise was simple: "To make the volume of commercials and programming uniform so that spikes in volume do not affect the consumer's ability to control sound." Eshoo said that ad volume spikes had "endangered hearing for decades." She also said legislative spouses had been urging their husbands or wives to sign on as co-sponsors. "I think they are all tired of getting blasted out of their easy chairs or off their exercise equipment due to these ridiculously loud commercials."
As reported by B&C, the bill was modified from the original form to give the broadcast and cable industry more time to implement the technology and to make an industry-backed engineering standard the rules for the road.
Of course, because it's politics, it's not as simple as "hey, cut that out!" and there are all kinds of details about the whens and hows of the bill, which still needs to get through congress before becoming a law. For the details see John Eggerton's full story on B&C.
Congress at its best.
One thing the governments done right this year…
Yeah!
I’m pretty hard-core libertarian, but making annoying things against the law is a kind of government intervention that I personally like.
I’ll write my congressman about making The Real Housewives a felony.
this is just a bill, yes it’s only a bill, and it’s sittin’ there on Capitol Hill…well it’s a long, long journey to the capital city, it’s a long, long wait while it sits in committee, but I know it’ll be a law someday, at least I hope and pray that it will, but today it is still…just a bill.
P.S. Craigward, you have NO chance lobbying against NeNe!
About time!
I watch a lot of my shows late at night after I get home from work, usually 10PM to 2AM. It’s really hard to regulate the sound so that it doesn’t wake everyone up. I usually have to have remote in hand to quickly hit mute when the commercials start, then FF through them, then switch mute back off when the show starts again.
@Robert
LOL! Now I have that song going through my head
I’m an amendment to be, yes an amendment to be
And I’m hopin’ that they’ll ratify me
There’s a lot of flag burners who have got too much freedom
I wanna make it legal for policemen to beat’em
‘Cause there’s limits to our liberty
At least I hope and pray that there are
‘Cause those liberal freak go to far
What if they don’t think you’re good enough?
Then I’ll crush all opposition to me
And I’ll make Ted Kennedy pay
If he fights back, I’ll say that he’s gay
This is unbelievable. With all the important issues facing this country, some dimwitted Congresspersons think this deserves attention? And what’s next? No flashing parts in ads? No women in bikinis?
Oh, and I really doubt this will survive the Supreme Court.
Holly says:
“LOL! Now I have that song going through my head”
You can always work it out with Lynn Ahrens’ riff on “The Preamble.”
A sensible law that the FCC can enforce. Long overdue and will be appreciated by those of us wearing out the volume controls on the remote!
Scott Jensen says:
“Oh, and I really doubt this will survive the Supreme Court.”
It will never even get close–there’s no meaningful limitation on commercial speech.
Just because they can doesn’t mean they should. At first glance I’d say “Great idea!” There are many annoying things that I’d like to eliminate. Telemarketers come to mind at once. (Yes, I am on the Do Not Call Register, doesn’t stop them all.) Let’s make it legal to shoot telemarketers.
Then reality sets in. What has the Federal Government ever done right? You know they are bound to screw this up too. Here’s an idea, call or email the local stations and complain about the volume shifts, or just continue to use your remote. But for God’s sake please don’t let the FEDs appoint yet another czar, or worse empower an agency to control tv volume. There will be unintended consequences, there always are.
took them long enough to finally do this, tired of constantly having to press mute when commercials come up
As an audio tech, I know this law will be useless. The problem is not volume as measured in decibels. Just as there are (or at least were) broadcast limits so images so dark as to be “illegal black” could not be broadcast, there are volume limits to audio as well.
The problem is compression. No individual frequency will exceed the limit of the law, but the use of “brickwall limiting” to compress every frequency at the maximum volume will continue.
If you are interested, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
No producer wants brickwall limiting on every second of every tv show, but every advertiser does. The law is doomed to failure even if it passes.
If they control the volume of the commercials, it may increase viewing them. I always DVR shows because the commercials are so loud. If I have to keep the remote handy all the time, I prefer to use it to go fast through commercials instead of using it to change the volume. There is no sound while speeding through commercials. The Baltimore NBC affiliate seems to manual crank volume up, when returning to shows the volume is still loud for a few seconds.
Bitey – What are “illegal black” images? (Google was no help.)
KN – the “illegal black” colors in an image are so dark that they did not transmitted correctly if at all through NTSC. That is why so many digital editors you can buy have “broadcast safe” color filters. It should not be an issue in digital TV.
Yay! I hope this thing actually goes through. I love taking naps every now and then with a television show in the background and its so annoying when I have the volume perfectly set up for the program but a commercial pops on and blasts me off the couch.
All the people posting happily about this law should read my earlier comment:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/10/08/quieter-tv-commercials-in-the-future/29970#comment-135539
Remember that VOLUME is something that can be legislated and measured. Compression technology like brickwall limiters change perceived LOUDNESS without violating broadcast volume limits that are already in place.
Something can be perceived to be louder without truly having an increase in volume. It’s a technical detail that audio pros have known about for a long time, like in the Loudness War link I posted in this thread earlier.
Do not be happy about this law. Commercials will still sound louder even though they will have a lower volume. Scientifically speaking, the fuller use of compressed frequencies will sound louder even though the amplitude of the sound wave will not be measurably higher than the regular program.
You will still be blasted off the couch unless congress bans compression, which has many very useful uses, including making dialog more audible. That would be as insane as banning reverb or echo effects, but at least it would do what the law claims it wants to do.