HOORAY! GOVERNMENT ACTION ON A REAL PROBLEM!

‘Turn that down!’ FCC orders TV ads to lower volume

In the end it took an act of Congress, but US television advertisers are finally required to do something parents have been pleading for for decades: turn down their excessively loud ads.

“A small bill with a big impact for the American consumer” is how Representative Ann Eshoo described the CALM Act, which came into force on Thursday to the blessed relief of countless television watchers.

“TV is about to become quieter,” she said.

For years Americans have endured television with excessively loud commercials, but the CALM Act — short for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation — is changing that.

“The rules adopted today require that commercials have the same average volume as the programs they accompany,” the Federal Communications Commission, which Congress empowered to enforce the new measures, said in a statement.