blaringly loud commercials

The BBQ Pit
1

Is there a limit on how loud a cable/satellite TV commercial can legally be? I’m thinking particularly of a certain discount-travel website that is not one of the two I would normally think of so I’m not going to name them here. Their commercial runs every night during the Daily Show and again during The Colbert Report, at least on DirectTV where I live, and it is offensively loud.

Even assuming this is legal (broacast TV has decibel limits but cable has fewer rules since it doesn’t use public airwaves – I’m not sure where satellite comes into the picture.) they may be losing more customers than they gain - I can’t imagine using their service when my initial impression of them is intensely negative. Also I immediately mute the TV and leave it that way until the show comes back on, which means the offending company is hurting all the sponsors behind it too.

There are a couple of other loud commercials on the air, but mercifully i have blanked them out of my mind at the moment.

2

The TV columnist in my local newspaper has written that commercials are typically broadcast at the maximum volume that the law allows, while other content typically is not. In other words, it’s legal, and the stations are complicit in making the commercials jump out at you as extra noisy – presumably as an attention-getter.

3

Get ready for the largest, steamingest pile of rancid turds you’ve ever been subjected to courtesy of a federal agency (in this case the FCC):

"Loud Commercials. The FCC does not regulate the volume of broadcast programming, including commercials. Surveys and technical studies reveal that the perceived loudness of particular broadcast matter is a subjective judgment that varies with each viewer and listener and is influenced by many factors, such as the material’s content and style and the voice and tone of the person speaking. The FCC has found no evidence that stations deliberately raise audio and modulation levels to emphasize commercial messages. "

In other words, it’s all in your head and we’ve got other fish to fry.

4

I remember reading (probably in a book that I no longer posess, so no cite) that commercials are not actually louder, they just sound that way because of how they’re mixed, or something like that.

That might be a good question for GQ.

5

Complicit is the key word: it is the advertiser, not the consumer, that is the station’s audience.

Don Deutch recently did an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show. They were discussing the anti-smoking commercial in which a young child sheds what look like amazingly real tears for many long seconds. Lauer, a father, said the commercial absolutely riveted him to the screen. As an advertising expert, Deutch nodded and took the position that (and I paraphrase) anything that catches the attention of the audience is not only good, it is desirable.

I disagree; I can’t tell you how many commercials I’ve enjoyed featuring beautiful, scantily clad women but couldn’t remember the kind of beer they were flacking.

So loud commercials are a fact of life and will continue to be so—when you’re in the kitchen getting a sandwich during the commercial, they will shout over your shoulder. Just be glad they can’t poke you in the ribs as well.

6

I remember reading something similar. It had to do with issues of average volume versus maximum volume, or something similar.

Anyway, my TV’s remote control has a “Mute” button. I don’t know why anyone would willingly listen to any commercials, loud or otherwise.

7

True, but it also has other buttons. If you want to keep people watching, it’s probably a good idea to lower the volume on commercials so they don’t have to watch with the remote in hand, ready to press the mute button (yeah, that’s enjoyable). The button that changes the channel is just as easy to push as the mute and fixes the problem just as well.

DirecTV is bad about this, showing commercials that tout DirecTV to people who are already watching DirecTV :dubious:. This sucks, because if you change the channel you are still watching DirecTV.

8

I’ve heard that too. I guess I’m not interested in mechanics of it as much as I am announcing a boycott of products and services that make my ears bleed.

9

The problem stems from the fact that most programs are mixed for 5.1 stereo, and most commercials are Dolby 2.1, or worse, mono.

Big differances in dynamic range, and they DO seem quite louder.

{hugs my TiVO}

10

I’ve been meaning to start a thread like this. Nobody will ever convince me that some commercials just ***seem ***louder, but aren’t. If they seem louder, then they are louder. I have even complained to my cable provider, thinking that this is something they should have control over. Of course I got no response. I think it’s a good idea to complain to the companies that are advertising.

Normally, since I watch via Tivo, it’s not a problem; I just FF through the commercials. But if I’m cooking in the kitchen, the TV is on, pretty much in the background, until I see the cats running from the living room with their paws over their ears.

11

Commercials tend to be highly compressed which means the average volume is louder, however the loudest volume in the commercial is no louder than the loudest volume in a movie, it’s just that the commercial does not have any quiet bits. I.e., it is pretty much at max volume for the whole 30 seconds. So technically, the max volume of the commercial is not louder than the television program you were watching. It is the same technique which makes a modern pop CD sound much louder than a classical CD.

An analogy might be to think of looking at the sun for a few seconds, then looking away, then look at it again sometime later. Compare that to looking at the sun all the time. The sun itself is not brighter in the second example but the average amount of light hitting your eyes is much more and it’s much more painful.

12

Almost everything I watch on satellite TV is at least an hour old. That way I can and do simply FF through the commercials.

13

I think this whole “technically, they’re not actually louder, they just seem louder” argument is a bunch of crap. Who cares? I don’t care if they announcer’s loud voice isn’t technically louder than the gunshot sound from the TV show, I just know that people were talking in a normal tone of voice during the show and now they’re yelling in my ear during the commercials.

Thank god for DVRs.

14

[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:11, topic:492506”]

Commercials tend to be highly compressed which means the average volume is louder, however the loudest volume in the commercial is no louder than the loudest volume in a movie, it’s just that the commercial does not have any quiet bits. I.e., it is pretty much at max volume for the whole 30 seconds. So technically, the max volume of the commercial is not louder than the television program you were watching. It is the same technique which makes a modern pop CD sound much louder than a classical CD.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, I’ve always assumed this is pretty much it. Any given volume setting on your TV has a maximum volume it will give you, but most average programming is not mixed to the max volume. You need room for louder and quieter sounds, so if typical movie dialogue is mixed at, say, an average of 5 loudness on a ten point scale, you have room to put in sounds that are supposed to be louder, like someone screaming (say at 7) or an explosion (say at 10). If you mix your dialogue audio at the maximum volume, then you have no place to go if you want to introduce relatively louder sounds. They’ll also be mixed at 10 if you want to avoid clipping and explosions won’t sound any louder than normal dialogue. Not an effect you generally go for.

Since commercials don’t need the space for louder sounds, they could be mixed all the way at the max and therefore are, on average, louder than normal programming. And, as mentioned, they could also be compressed. So, if you have a commercial whose loudness range goes from 6-10 on our hypothetical scale, you can run the audio through a compressor which can shrink this range as tight as you want it, say squeezing in the 6-10 range to 9-10. This is exactly what happens in the production of many modern audio tracks (critics have dubbed it the “loudness wars.”)

For those interested, here’s an example of a waveform from Helter Skelter, which was a pretty hard rockin tune in the day. And here’s Disturbed’s “Believe” as an example of modern production. The top and bottom waveforms indicate left and right channels. Basically, the top and bottom horizontal lines running along each waveform indicate maximum volume (the “10” in the scale we used above). Note how the Beatles tune is mixed to give plenty of room. Even the loudest parts are mixed to maybe an 8, and there is some variation in the volume throughout the song.

Now look at the Disturbed song. IT’S ALL LOUDLOUDLOUDLOUD ALL THE WAY THROUGH. It’s just a relentless assault of LOUD. That’s compression in action and mixing at the highest possible loudness. There’s almost no variation in volume. Even if you mixed Helter Skelter such that the loudest parts hit max volume, you’ll still see the song doesn’t sit there for most of time. It seems to average at a loudness of 7.5.

This is the same idea in action with the commercials.

15

Think of recorded music. Some are recorded at a hotter level than others. And you the listener might need to turn the volume up or down when a new song starts.

It’s not that someone at the TV station is cranking up the volume every time the programming goes to commercials. In that sense the FCC is completely correct, because it’s unnecessary for stations to do so. The “up” is already built in to the source material.

The FCC is basically skirting the issue by investigating stations, who technically have nothing to do with it. Stations could, however, do something about it if they want to, by running their audio through equipment that limits the maximum output.

16

IME broadcasters are sensitive to complaints. If you’re muting - or worse, changing channel - then they’re not so effective for their market, the advertisers. I’ve complained once or twice and noted improvements thereafter. I remember once emailing Classic FM (UK radio station) saying that something they were running (an ad IIRC) was an automatic switchover signal for me, and they stopped running it very quickly. People who switch over tend to not switch back very quickly, meaning that their competitors are earning money.

17

Actually, limiting maximum output is how you compress the audio signal to make the average volume louder in the first place. You limit the volume of the loudest parts (peaks) which reduces the dynamic range, then to compensate you raise the volume of everything back up again. For this to work it would have to be done only to the ads. Maybe that’s what you meant, if so, disregard this post.

18

[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:17, topic:492506”]

Actually, limiting maximum output is how you compress the audio signal to make the average volume louder in the first place. You limit the volume of the loudest parts (peaks) which reduces the dynamic range, then to compensate you raise the volume of everything back up again. For this to work it would have to be done only to the ads. Maybe that’s what you meant, if so, disregard this post.
[/QUOTE]

Well, back when I was working in sound (which is 25 years ago or so), a limiter and a compressor were two different pieces of equipment. Perhaps things have changed.

19

Yes they are different, but they can both be used to raise the average volume as they both work to decrease the peaks which reduces dynamic range and allows you to raise the overall volume.

I think the main difference is that a limiter is normally a hard limiter that does nothing until the signal reaches a certain level, at which point it is stopped from going any louder. Compressors can be set to work at a certain level, but rather than limiting volume at that level, it may reduce the increase in volume beyond that. So it can be a more subtle effect.

If you were to limit the entire broadcast then you’d be reducing the dynamic range and increasing the average volume levels of the movie as well as the ads. In that sense you’d be improving the situation, but movie buffs would probably prefer to keep the dynamic range as it is. The other option would be to limit just the ads so that their average volume was similar to program they are shown in.

20

BBC TV is very bad about their commercial spots cranking up in volume. The new TV we just got has a feature that regulates everything at the same volume level, and we definitely have that turned on. It’s made a difference.