You’ve known it your whole media life…the ads that play in between your favorite TV shows are LOUD. Much louder than the programming itself. Now, of course, if you’re like me you have aleviated this problem by time-shifting all your programming with a DVR/TiVO device and zipping through the entire ad block…pausing only occassionally to watch ones you think are cool…like my current favorite from Radio Shack:
Oh, sorry, but I digress. For those of you who are not fortunate enough to have a time-shifting device…or, like me, you’ve moved to another country and find yourself without one…you KNOW how disruptive the inconsistency in volume between TV programming and advertising can be.
Now, anyone who has ever worked in or around a TV station knows that the standard answer to the question “why are the commercials so much louder than the programs” is some vague arm-waving about them just sounding louder because of the intensity of the announcers. Here’s a pretty good explanation from “Consumerman.” But, I’m wondering, even if they were louder…if every TV station were paying some college intern to boost the volume knob going into a stopset…is this really something we need legislation on? I mean, the negative attitude I have toward any ad that comes blaring out at me can’t possibly help the client. And a recent survey suggests the same.
Well, thank goodness for the United States House of Representatives! By a voice vote today they pass the CALM bill–that stands for Commercial Advertising Loudness Mediation bill. Voice vote means unnanymous if I’m reading things correctly. The economy…health care reform…cures for problems in education…they can’t agree on that. But something like this is apparently easy to rally around.
Saving our eardrums
The bill was guided through the legislative process by California Representative Anna Eshoo who says that the problem has existed for half a century but no one has done anything about it. She also says that for the 17 years she’s been in Washington DC she hasn’t witnessed such across the board support for a piece of legislation. But, a quick search today brought up several people in her district (I imagine…certainly her state) who think it sounds like Congress is focusing on the wrong thing. One person thinks it’s a sign of “nanny government” taking responsibility for what should be left to the individual. Another decries the person-hours required by Eshoo’s staff to wind it it through the process.
What do you think?
