Congress: CALM Down, Commercials

Wednesday, 01 December 2010 | by Pat's Picks

You probably don’t even realize that you do it anymore—reach for the remote to lower the volume every time a commercial comes on the air. That’s about to change says the Wall Street Journal. After more than a decade of fielding complaints, Congress is set to vote on the TV “loudness” Act.

Officially, it’s called the Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. And the Journal has a good explanation of why it’s so hard to regulate something that seems like it would be easy to fix. Apparently, the “peak” volume of commercials is usually in line, but they’re recorded so that more of the audio is nearly at the peak, where as TV programs have more ups and downs.

The California Representative who introduced the bill says it’s something that bothers lots of people: “If I’d saved 50 million children from some malady, people would not have the interest that they have in this.”