Will Congress Ban Loud TV Ads?
By Mark Fleischmann June 24, 2008 — If Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) walks by, be sure to tip your hat and say "thank you!" She's the member of Congress who introduced the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (or CALM) Act in the House of Representatives. The law, if passed, would take aim at blaring TV ads that are noticeably louder than the programming in which they appear.

The law, cosponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), would give the Federal Communications Commission a year to adopt rules that would prevent ads from being substantially louder than the program. Or as Eshoo puts it, "excessively noisy and strident." It is otherwise light on technical details, presumably to be left to the FCC.

Says 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. A TV program has a mix of audio levels. There are loud and soft parts. Nuance is used to build the dramatic effect. Most advertisers don’t want nuance. They want to grab our attention, and to do this, they record every part of it as loud as possible. My legislation will reduce the volume of commercials in order to bring them to same level as the programs they accompany."

The National Association of Broadcasters is "studying it," says executive VP Dennis Wharton. The American Association of Advertising Agencies says the FCC may already have the authority to regulate ad volume but wants to be part of the rulemaking process.

See story in Multichannel News, Eshoo's statement, and the draft bill.

Another way of taming loud TV ads would build the solution into the hardware, with a feature like Dolby Volume.