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Imagine seeing ads…
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
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Imagine paying for ads...
This is one of those headlines for a problem I had no idea existed
And watching ads to see ads (watching trailers on IMDb).
Use to be a problem on TV too. The same type of laws regulate tv ads.
And they are still too loud
TV ads are acceptable, they are strictly limited to -24 LUFS. Streaming media like YouTube enforces -14 LUFS.
That's 10 decibels, it's twice as loud.
And that's just the hard cutoff.
While YouTube will bring down the volume automatically (say, if you upload something with -9 LUFS, it will bring it down to -14), it doesn't scale up.
So maybe a conscious creator is uploading at -24, then BOOM ad at -14 and your ears start to bleed.
This law aims to fix that, by forcing the ads to be at the same volume of the content that's playing, instead of just being able to blast at full volume.
TV ads are not acceptable. that -24 limit is pretty useless if the program you were watching is quiet so you turned up the volume. Besides, even if this weren't an issue, no targeted ad is acceptable.
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no thank you
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Adblock and piracy is the only way.
Fuck Big Media
Now we just need to normalize audio between action sequences and normal conversation, that shit hella disproportionate a lot of the time.
I mean my audio system pulls the dialog into the center channel and puts everything else into the surround so it's easier to pick out.
I am shit at picking out a voice in a crowd, so that helps me immeasurably.
This should be a nice option, not a necessity. Sound mixing should be done correctly to adapt to the average stereo system with an average sound level by default. Then people who can afford a better setup and an individual house can opt for the mixing that fits their situation.
This is why I watch with subtitles. I set the volume based on action scenes, and they are practically whispering in conversations.
Not in the US, but I'd go even further and ban any ad mimicking an "alerting" kind of sound, especially starting with it.
Alarms, ringtones, even loud door knocking. Even worse, traffic sounds with car horns (rare, but some still do this shit somehow). I can't believe some of the ads I get are still legal, deliberately stressing you to get your attention shouldn't be.
Those car horn/siren radio ads are worse than Internet clickbait and dangerous. Hate them worse than extra loud ads.
legal, deliberately stressing you to get your attention shouldn't be.
I'm thinking of a couple of entire industries that could be banned or destroyed to help people's brains.
I worked on a crew that took lots of long interstate drives when "We Like to Party" by the Vengaboys was a big radio hit. Every time that goddamned horn blasted in that song when we were on the road, we all frantically looked around to see the big truck that was about to kill us only to realize it was just the stupid Vengabus.
Emergency sirens in radio ads (i.e. often played in the car) are the worst.
I can't understand how people use any platforms with ads. Any ads are bad, but audio/video ads are the worst. I refuse to use any platform that tries to hijack my attention like that.
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ads? 🏴☠️
Depends on if local or hosted. Just that the hosted ones are ... usually not filtered.
Louder commercials than TV have long been illegal, but they don't enforce it. I know someone however that used to call or email or whatever the station to complain when they did it and they would stop for at least a bit because of those laws that went mostly unenforced.
But the less cynical more hopeful generations before us had passed those common sense laws and enforced them at one point.
for TV, yes, not for streaming.
Yeah they had their chance. Audio streaming services have (mostly) managed to figure out licensing agreements so all music is on all platforms.
Video streaming services all created their own walled gardens with various levels of advertising. Paramount even offered an advertising free tier but would happily advertise their own shows before other shows (noticed specifically on Star Trek shows but I imagine other providers do it too).
In the end... Fuck them. I give up on trying to figure out streaming video with all its complications. Back to the seven seas to procure my own.
You can file complaints with the FCC, but the FCC doesn't actively monitor it. The biggest problem is that no matter how the law is written, they will find ways to abuse it.
The law actually requires that the average volume of the ad not be greater than the average volume of the show. And it even specifies that the average is a running average, not just the peak vs lowest. But then loud portions of the show pump that average up. Like let's say that during the credits you play really loud music, or really loud bloopers, well that would bump average. And if the commercial had a really long quiet period, like a long section where someone whispers the side affects a medication, well that bumps your loudest allowable portions up. They can also wait for the quietest part of a show to make the difference more significant.
And there's much more that they can do that makes it seem louder, like frequency boosting and audio compression that are all totally legal. So, they can actually bump the apparent "loudness" of a commercial quite a bit and still be legal.
FCC does not have jurisdiction over streaming.
That is true, but I am not sure why you are telling me. Responded to the wrong comment maybe?
just to clarify that this only works for TV and not streaming, because the article is about streaming
They say “average” volume. What do they mean by that? Or, more precisely, how are they measuring that? RMS? LUFS?
Probably LUFS, but even with LUFS there are ways to make perceived volume louder while remaining within a threshold
Excuse me, I am finally glad I'm in California for a reason besides the food
On one hand, this, on the other hand, y'all are trying to destroy the entire concept of property rights by putting government-snitch DRM in 3D printers. You've got some work to do to crawl out of that net negative.
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You're taking a lot for granted then. Seek out some broader perspective
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granny has the audio for her TV shows turned up because she can barely hear them. On the ad break the volume is insane 🙉
This was made illegal decades ago on network and cable television. About time it circled around to streaming.
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finally! This has been a scourge for decades.
I think if I experience this a number of times, I’ll stop watching that channel.
Hell yeah California. Suck it, Peacock.
W
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain - works fairly well for audio. I imagine some sort of mean average would be good enough for balancing a movie's loudness to the adverts.
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