The average volume of the commercial must be the same as the average volume of the program, so commercials insert several seconds of very quiet passages. This makes their average volume the same as the average volume of the program.
The listener will perceive a huge change in volume even though the commercial has the same average volume as the program. This improved algorithm excludes quiet or silent passages when calculating the average volume of a commercial.
The commercial will then have a high average volume level, forcing them to dial back the sound on the entire commercial to match the volume of the program. Of course, the perception of loudness is based on many factors.
So even a commercial broadcast at a similar volume to the program that precedes it can be perceived to be of different loudness. Instead, in the years following the introduction of the CALM Act, stations were expected to self-monitor and report any abnormalities.
Instead, some advertisers devised a cheat, editing commercials to have 15 seconds of silence and 15 seconds of loud audio. The FCC closed that loophole, at least. With lax enforcement and no oversight on streaming, what else can be done? On a consumer level, viewers can look for a volume leveling option on their television, streaming stick, or soundbar that will help moderate audio.
With about 4, televisions in the region at the time, audience-wise it was not all that different from paying a guy to yell about a product in Times Square.
But the world changed forever. A decade year later, in , a similar moment occurred in the annals of television history. The Federal Communications Commission got its first consumer complaints about loud commercials on television.
The pandemic has forced people to spend more time in front of the television than they have in ages. Simple questions like "Is it just me or are the ads way louder than 'Jeopardy!
Casually asking people if they've experienced loud commercials yields one of two general responses: "It's so annoying! There is a law on the books — the CALM Act , passed in — that is supposed to rein in loud commercials.
But the FCC hasn't done any enforcement on it in the better part of a decade. Most significantly of all, for the people angry about explosively loud ads on streaming, there's absolutely nothing the FCC can do about that even if they were enforcing it.
What's more, it's not entirely clear there's any way to do anything about that even through Congress. The story goes that Rep. Anna Eshoo wrote the CALM Act after a loud television commercial interrupted dinner , which may be the single best argument for being an elected member of Congress I have ever heard. It cascaded through the legislature, passing the Senate unanimously and the House in a voice vote before then-President Barack Obama signed it.
Eshoo remarked at the time it was the most popular piece of legislation she had ever introduced in Congress. The CALM act is actually fairly simple; it doesn't say "commercials must be this loud" and it doesn't get into the nitty gritty of how to measure that or enforce it or what consequences shall befall an operator who violates it. It's not written for most of us to understand. But it does set acceptable bounds for the soundscape of television. It's a smart approach, because Congress is home to lawyers, doctors, activists, and people with all manner of expertise, but conspicuously no audio engineers, and the Advanced Television Systems Committee is understandably full of them.
Congress took a standard that industry professionals had approved, and simply started requiring it. Because commercials can appear on your screen through a number of different ways from a number of different sources — such as being inserted by the local station or television provider, or embedded with the content itself — a standard for the whole system, top to bottom, at least formalizes the acceptable volume. After an initial surge in complaints about loud commercials to the FCC following the Act's passage and implementation, the bill largely had the desired impact, with complaints leveling off after a few years.
The past several months show complaints on the rise, according to an Insider analysis of the FCC database of complaints. Should the current rate hold, is poised to be the worst year since the initial rollout.
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