Post by jeffolie on Jun 11, 2009 10:01:31 GMT -6
So far this is only a proposal: lower TV ad volumes
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WASHINGTON — Congress soon might mute screaming TV-ad announcers who press viewers to "buy now!" — if broadcasters don't beat the lawmakers to the volume button.
Under a proposal to be taken up Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission would squelch ad volumes to the average decibels of the TV show during which they appear.
Currently, TV ads can't be louder than the loudest peak in a show, said David Perry , the chairman of the broadcast production committee of the American Association of Advertising Agencies in New York . Ads often seem louder to viewers, he added, because a program's volume peak rarely comes just before an ad.
"Every time the ads came on they blew me out of my seat,"
Eshoo concedes that her bill isn't as high a priority as, say, health care or war funding, but she's confident that it will pass.
"People practically throw their arms around me when they hear about it," she said.
However, an aide to Sen. Roger Wicker , R- Miss. , who introduced the bill in the Senate last year, said Wicker wouldn't reintroduce the bill because he was working with broadcasters to hold down the volume.
"The senator is monitoring the progress being made and will consider reintroducing legislation if the industry cannot fix the problem on its own," Wicker's spokesman, Jahan Wilcox , said in an e-mail.
Perry, the ad agency association's spokesman on the matter, agreed that broadcasters should set their own loudness standards.
" Congress will inevitably make it more messy than it needs to be," he said. "It's like going after a fly with a pistol."
Britain set similar restrictions on loud ads last year.
news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090610/pl_mcclatchy/3249623
=============================================================
WASHINGTON — Congress soon might mute screaming TV-ad announcers who press viewers to "buy now!" — if broadcasters don't beat the lawmakers to the volume button.
Under a proposal to be taken up Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission would squelch ad volumes to the average decibels of the TV show during which they appear.
Currently, TV ads can't be louder than the loudest peak in a show, said David Perry , the chairman of the broadcast production committee of the American Association of Advertising Agencies in New York . Ads often seem louder to viewers, he added, because a program's volume peak rarely comes just before an ad.
"Every time the ads came on they blew me out of my seat,"
Eshoo concedes that her bill isn't as high a priority as, say, health care or war funding, but she's confident that it will pass.
"People practically throw their arms around me when they hear about it," she said.
However, an aide to Sen. Roger Wicker , R- Miss. , who introduced the bill in the Senate last year, said Wicker wouldn't reintroduce the bill because he was working with broadcasters to hold down the volume.
"The senator is monitoring the progress being made and will consider reintroducing legislation if the industry cannot fix the problem on its own," Wicker's spokesman, Jahan Wilcox , said in an e-mail.
Perry, the ad agency association's spokesman on the matter, agreed that broadcasters should set their own loudness standards.
" Congress will inevitably make it more messy than it needs to be," he said. "It's like going after a fly with a pistol."
Britain set similar restrictions on loud ads last year.
news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090610/pl_mcclatchy/3249623