New law turns down volume on TV ads

NEW YORK TV viewing could soon sound a little calmer. The CALM Act, which limits the volume of TV commercials, goes into effect on Thursday.

CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation. The act is designed to prevent TV commercials from blaring at louder volumes than the program content they accompany. The rules govern broadcasters as well as cable and satellite operators.

The rules are meant to protect viewers from excessively loud commercials.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted the rules a year ago, but gave the industry a one-year grace period to adopt them.

Suspected violations can be reported by the public to the FCC on its website.

[zebra8835]

Normally when we watch a television show our volume control is set at number 8. When the commercials come on, you can turn the volume down to number 2 and still distinctly hear the commercial. If you'd try to turn down the volume that low during your show, you couldn't begin to hear it. There's no question the commercials are a lot louder and it's very annoying. I'm so grateful that they're finally doing this.

[barbaram99]

They are quieter. I hate yelling ads..

[livingtxlife]

What a waste of government resources and time - just turn the volume down or fast forward through them! Or perhaps that takes too much energy from people!

[tjl456]

I guess they needed a year to find the volume control.....

[venusvegasvada]

It's a start. But all broadcasts are supposed to be level matched anyway. It's just another example of the Cable providers shoving their crap down our throats once they have you locked into a plan that costs thousands to get out of early.

Let's get the damn commercials reduced in time shown period.

It's absolute ridiculous the number of commercials shown on cable TV.

Over 1/3 of the time is all commercials. You'll get around 8 minutes or 12 commercials between each 15 mins of a show you are watching.

Even worse is the way the Cable TV broadcasters hack up movies and cut out whole scenes to make room for more commercials than where originally planned. The normal commercial break points in movies no longer work, so they just cut out whole sections like a butcher.

It's a joke that they charge so much money for the service, then screw the viewers over with relentless TV commercials.

If you started watching TV on January 1st and it was nothing but the annual allotted commercials shown first, you would not see a single TV show until sometime in May. It's a disgrace.

[tdslau]

I expect this to be as effective as the Do Not Call Registry.

[mecury69]

More regulations by BIG GOVERNMENT!

[IPonUall2]

This had better work or I'm throwing the television out of the window.

[CLAY5523]

What's the 800 number for reporting abusers? There is one as reported in the nigtly news last night.

[canislupus16]

"Suspected violations can be reported by the public to the FCC on its website."
On its website? Big deal. The new law means nothing unless there are sanctions. What are the sanctions? There are all sorts of laws on the books with no downside for offenders (Congress comes to mind). Bet on it: "oops, sorry, won't happen again [wink]" while the FCC does nothing. How about MEANINGFUL fines for first (and subsequent) offenders?