By: Connor

I think everyone can agree that commercials largely have 3 things in common. They are all tolerated in exchange for ‘free’ tv, annoying, and loud. Commercials rub me the same way as those mouse-over activation emoticon ads that scream ‘HELLO!!!!’ 3 times louder than whatever i’m listening to, which is to say unpleasantly.

Handily, Rep. Anna Eshoo’s Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act was passed for Senate review by first the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet in October and then by the full Commerce Committee in November. No word yet on when the Senate will have time to actually review the bill, which is directed towards the FCC and outlined below.

- Advertisements accompanying such video programming shall not be excessively noisy or strident.
- Such advertisements shall not be presented at modulation levels substantially higher than the program material that such advertisements accompany.
- The average maximum loudness of such advertisements shall not be substantially higher than the average maximum loudness of the program material that such advertisements accompany.

Unsurprisingly, the bill is a popular one – actually two bills, both called the CALM act – as who wouldn’t be in favor of less annoying commercials? A better question to ask is: is this a valuable use of Senate time?

According to Eshoo,

“Most Americans are not overjoyed to watch television commercials, but they are willing to tolerate them to sustain free over-the-air television. What annoys all of us is the sudden increase of volume when commercials are aired… This legislation will reduce the volume of commercials in order to bring them to same level as the programs they accompany.”

So basically, yes, this is a valuable use of Senate time. Perhaps I’m biased – I watch maybe an hour or 2 of TV a month – but I’m more depressed that this bill is required than excited for it’s implementation. The FCC has set up an informational page regarding volume levels already, although it mainly seems focused on blaming the TV networks and convincing people to use compressors, limiters, and gain regulators in their home theater systems (wtf).

Maybe in a few years time this bill will have come to fruition, but until then keep your finger poised above the mute button.

Of course, 3rd parties have been developing methods of combating commercial loudness for a few years now, but by and large the public remains unaware or unwilling to fork out the cash. One idea tossed around by Dolby is called ‘Dolby Volume.’ Basically the listener sets their desired volume level and then every channel and every input source outputs audio at the same perceived volume level—and does so without destroying the dynamic range that’s supposed to exist within TV shows, movies, and CDs.

Sounds pretty awesome, although you should expect to drop anywhere from $400-$4000 USD on your reciever alone. Check out this podcast on Dolbycast, featuring an interview with one of the lead designers of Dolby Volume, Alan Seefeldt. Take it with a grain of salt though, they’re plugging their own product.

Read the full story on The Hill

Technorati Tags: Alan Seefeldt, Bill, CALM Act, Eshoo, FCC, Loudness Wars, senate, TV Commercials, Whitehouse

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Loudness Wars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.