One of the least necessary bills of the year
December 15, 2009 | Posted by Nat-Wu I get annoyed by loud commercials too, but as the article mentions, all you really have to do is hit the mute button and the problem goes away. Does the House really need to legislate this?
The House has voted to level off the abrupt spikes in volume felt by television viewers during commercial breaks.
The bill — approved by a voice vote — is aimed at stopping TV ads from playing noticeably louder than programs. Supporters say the measure would alleviate a common irritation that leads consumers to scramble for the mute button as they watch their favorite shows.
I just don’t quite understand why this is worthy of the attention of our national legislative body. Don’t they have anything better to do?
Categories: Uncategorized | 
Tags: TV, U.S. House of Representatives | 
6 Comments »
What else are they going to do? Pass health care reform? hahaha
Eh, I’d much rather them regulate this than the content of broadcasts, I suppose.
The commercials that really abuse the volume spike are even more jarring and agitating than telemarketer calls, at least for me. And I don’t see any real abusive market restrictions here, either — the noise spikes cause a negative externality for viewers, and advertisers have an incentive to get louder and louder as they compete with each other to be the most attention getting. So regulation is at least not blatantly unjustifiable.
Is it too much to hope that maybe they’ll feel so satisfied from passing this bill that they’ll forget about trying to pass football playoff legislation?
It’s not that they couldn’t, it’s just I wonder at the absurdity of it. Seriously, we have two wars going on, a recession, the finance industry desperately needs reform, unemployment is biting deep, pollution is still a problem, we’re still dependent on foreign oil, and last but not least millions of Americans are without health insurance (and many without health care at all), and the House has time to talk about a bill to keep commercials from getting too loud? Like I said, if your TV doesn’t already have auto volume-leveling, your remote does have a mute button. This is just not a pressing issue.
That sort of thing is why the Founders thought a Senate was necessary as well.
Good point. If only we still had one…
Think of it this way – eventually, advertisers would comptete to be the loudest. This could become very damaging to home theater hardware and eardrums alike.