WASHINGTON — Congress soon might mute screaming TV-ad announcers who press viewers to “buy now!” — if broadcasters don’t beat the lawmakers to the volume button.
Under a proposal to be taken up today, the Federal Communications Commission would limit ad volumes to the average decibels of the TV show during which they appear.
Currently, TV ads can’t be louder than the loudest peak in a show, said David Perry, the chairman of the broadcast production committee of the American Association of Advertising Agencies in New York. Ads often seem louder to viewers, he added, because a program’s volume peak rarely comes just before an ad.
“Every time the ads came on, they blew me out of my seat,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who introduced the bill last June. “It really turns you off.”
Eshoo is a member of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, which will consider the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, a.k.a. CALM. It has 63 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate.
