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You turn on your favorite show but can’t hear the dialogue. I turned up the volume. It’s perfect. And then, an announcement comes. It’s way too loud. You are upset.
This is about to become a thing of the past, at least in California. Starting July 1, a state law will go into effect that prohibits streaming platforms from serving ads louder than the programming they accompany.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill last year to force the normalization of sound levels so viewers aren’t disturbed by loud commercials.
Federal law already requires that ads match the average volume of content being watched, although it only applies to broadcast TV stations and cable operators. Legislation now requires streaming platforms to do the same.
Democratic Sen. Tom Amberg said he decided to introduce the bill after his legislative director complained to him about how an obnoxiously loud advertisement woke his daughter when he was about to finish watching a show.
“This bill was inspired by baby Samantha and every exhausted parent who finally gets their child to sleep, only to get a loud, gushing ad undoing all that hard work,” Amberg said in a statement last year. “SB 576 brings some much-needed peace and quiet to California families by ensuring that streaming ads are not louder than the shows we actually want to watch.”
He expressed this more frankly in an interview with Hollywood Reporter“If they can find a way to increase the volume, they can find a way not to increase the volume.”
“We heard Californians loud and clear, and what is clear is that they do not want commercials any louder than the level at which they previously enjoyed the program,” Newsom added.
Not everyone is happy. The Motion Picture Association and the Streaming Innovation Alliance opposed the measure, arguing that many platforms are already working to address the issue. They noted that services have long been stepping in to adjust the loudness of commercials that come from server-side ad insertion, and that they are trying to establish best practices for normalizing ad loudness.
Then, perhaps lawmakers can do something about the overly mumbled dialogue preceded by deafening explosions.
