What? I cant hear you there is a loud commercial on.

--Previous Message--
: While it's been talked about for ages, the Senate has now passed a
: bill that attempts to force TV commercials to be at a similar
: volume to the shows that they're paired with. As many people
: have complained over the years, it often feels that the
: commercials are set to a much higher volume to gain attention.
: Of course, in reality, this tends to annoy more than anything
: else. The so-called CALM Act (Commercial Advertisement Loudness
: Mitigation - we really need to stop cutesy naming of bills)
: gives the FCC the mandate to make sure commercials are at a
: reasonable volume. The House has passed a similar bill, and once
: the two are aligned, it's likely this will become law.
:
: However, as John Abell points out at Wired, this probably won't
: matter too much. Fewer and fewer people seem to actually watch
: TV commercials these days, and more TV viewing is shifting to
: the internet (where these rules won't apply). And, while I agree
: that louder commercials can be annoying, is this really the sort
: of thing that needs to involve the federal government?
:
:
: I've said many times that the first button that's going to die
: on my remote is mute - so I think it matters.
:
: To make matters worse, with my digital cable they haven't
: managed to get the channels all set to a comparable volume (and
: the satellite feeds for the radio stations are way lower than
: the tv channels). I bring it up with my provider every so often
: in the hope that my harping about it will make them upgrade so
: they can fix that.
: