The FCC is going to require television commercials to be quieter

Binging on Mad Men via Netflix or Blu-ray has a few advantages over watching the show when it broadcasts. Namely, not having to sit through commercials that jump higher in volume than anything heard in the halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. As spotted by The Hill, the FCC is hoping to change that last bit with an update to 2011’s Commercial Advertisement Litigation Mitigation Act; the outfit recently ruled for further volume-fluctuation restrictions for certain TV ads. 

The days of television commercials being startlingly louder than the shows people are watching could soon be coming to an end. Television commercials will be noticeably quieter under new rules from the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC announced Tuesday it is moving forward with changes to its regulations to further restrict the volume of television commercials under the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. “It is our hope that these changes will result in a modest decrease in the perceived loudness of certain commercials,” the agency wrote in the Federal Register. The rules, which were last updated in 2011, give the agency a new way of measuring the loudness of television commercials. They apply to digital broadcasters, digital cable operators and satellite providers. The rules go into effect on June 4, 2015.