Why do they make the volume of commercials on tv louder than the program…It bugs me that I have to get up and constanly play with the volume. Anyone know?
people often leave the viewing area during commercials.
from a distance, you can hear a commercial better if it is louder.
they want you to hear the commercial. that is the point.
buy a remote.
ah yes that would make sense…
I don’t know the details of the FCC regulations, but I once read that the rules put a limit on the volume of sound transmissions. Explosions, sirens, and shouts have to be under this limit, and regular sounds are much softer.
Advertising agencies have the same limits, but a 30-second or 1-minute spot has a smaller range. they keep the extremes of the volume within the legal limit, but they push the average volume as high as they can manage.
MBH is talking about the dynamic range (the difference between the softest and loudest sounds). TV commercials use a process called “compression” to pull the soft sounds up and keep the average level high. I used to work at a rock station that did the same thing with music so that it always punched through as you flipped up and down the dial.
…or perhaps its so you hear the commercial when you are putting the kettle on, grabbing a beer, on the can or any of the other things you might do during a commercial break away from the TV?
yes, that is another possibility.
wait, no it isn’t.
I seem to recall that in the years preceeding Ronald Reagan, the FCC did in fact set limits on how loud a commercial could be played. I believe it had to stay within the range on the Television program it ran in.
However, Ronny, being the forward thinker that he… scratch that… The de-regualation philosophy that Reagan embraced quickly put an end to that little rule.
If your interested, I can rummage around my textbooks and try to find a site for ya.
My TV has an AI Sound feature that keeps everything at the same level, so I don’t notice this.
Anyway, I always thought it was because commercials are filmed with cheaper cameras and sound equipment, and they don’t really edit the sound at all. I never imagined it was done intentionally. Are these just conspiracy theories?
I don’t know anything about sound/filming by the way, just guessing here. I can’t believe it’s done intentionally.
It is definitely done intententionally. Also, some commercials, to get around the volume limits, will use the maximum volume, but also make sure that the sound is in the range best heard by humans (ie not just maximum allowable volume, but also in the range that “sounds” loudest). At least this was the practice when I was an intern (helped make local commercials) at a TV station in AR.