[HN Gopher] California passes law to reduce volume of commercial...
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California passes law to reduce volume of commercials on streaming
services
Author : mikhael
Score : 74 points
Date : 2025-10-07 21:12 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gov.ca.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gov.ca.gov)
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| Were there any streaming services that played ads at a louder
| level than the content...?
| slater wrote:
| Either at louder levels, or playing the old game of volume vs.
| compression
| BlewisJS wrote:
| Yes...?
| justarobert wrote:
| At least on the roku apps most of them do for me. I might be
| willing to believe that it's just them unintentionally
| misconfiguring it or something; I'm sure roku isn't the primary
| focus for any of them, but either way, they need to fix it.
| belval wrote:
| It's for sure an intentional issue considering how long its
| been there without getting fixed.
|
| So obnoxious as well, it isn't somewhat louder, it's
| aggressively louder.
| esseph wrote:
| Hulu
| makr17 wrote:
| All of them? It's gotten so bad that I remapped the Netflix
| button on the Shield remote to mute the receiver. The remote
| has volume up/down buttons, but no mute, and ads are _so_ loud
| now.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Hitting vol up and down at the same time on the shield remote
| will mute. i thought shield also had a way reduce dynamic
| range in the audio stream to make this a non issue for those
| that don't their audio channels being touched.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Are there any that don't?
| imiric wrote:
| Ah, yes, audio volume. The biggest problem of advertising.
| sbisker wrote:
| Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but actually it
| historically has been a problem. In the US it became regulated
| for TV in 2010 with the CALM Act, and this is just a
| modernization of that. https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-
| commercials
| mholm wrote:
| It's talking about the specific content being watched, right?
| Could a media company release a silent episode, then if any ad
| with noise is played on it, file suit?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I think in the standard they use for calculating the normalized
| loudness (bs1770) is technically undefined for silent content
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Inb4 the media companies argue that it's violating muh "free
| speech"*
|
| * a universally good concept but this isn't an example of it
| unless you're a lawyer.
| rolph wrote:
| inb4 media is liable for damages to your equipment when signal
| level suddenly exceeds nominal.
| smakt wrote:
| Heh. The USA, getting there one law at a time. Have they banned
| stealing yet? Oh wait, never mind.
| sixothree wrote:
| We are no longer one country it seems.
| laughing_man wrote:
| Broadcasters used to say the ads were no louder than the regular
| programming, but the "density" was higher, so the _seem_ louder,
| and that if you measured them with a dB meter you wouldn 't see
| any change.
|
| That was years ago, though. I wonder if it was true back then,
| and if so whether or not it changed over time.
| Xelbair wrote:
| right now there's an industry standard way to measure perceived
| loudness, and at least in saner places - the limits were
| already set in place.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| It was only ever true by an extremely specific, now outdated,
| definition of loudness. Basically commercials back then would
| have the audio extremely compressed, such that they were always
| at the maximum possible volume allowable by your system at a
| given volume setting, whereas content mixed to be _enjoyed_
| would be mixed such that there are louder and quieter moments,
| which is both gentler on the ear and more dynamic.
|
| You know how movies are mixed such that they have really quiet
| dialogue and big explosions are like 4-5x as loud? Commercials
| are in explosion-mode the whole time.
|
| So yeah, commercials are mixed louder than the rest of the
| content on purpose, just to try to snag your attention. If they
| could, advertisers would come into your house and turn the
| volume on your AV receiver/soundbar/tv/computer/phone way up
| themselves.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Music albums have been suffering by dynamic range compression
| as well. They apparently sell better since they sound louder,
| but information is lost in the process.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
| louthy wrote:
| > density
|
| It's reduced _dynamic range_ , this is done using audio
| compression which, roughly, has the effect of making the quiet
| parts louder and and loud parts quieter, then the volume level
| can be increased. The overall effect is to keep the decibel
| levels the same, but the every sound within the range is now
| shouting at you.
| themafia wrote:
| > has the effect of making the quiet parts louder and and
| loud parts quieter
|
| Not quite. The ceiling of the signal is the same. The quiet
| parts have gain added but the louder parts (over the
| threshold/above the knee) receive no modification at all.
|
| Once compression is complete you might even do a
| normalization pass to ensure that the loudest impulse in your
| audio achieves 0dBFS.
|
| Put the two together and you have a "wall of noise" effect.
| louthy wrote:
| I wrote "roughly" on purpose, but I think your description
| is wrong. A compressor triggers when the signal goes above
| a threshold, this applies a compression factor to the loud
| signal, which reduces the overall gain of the loud sounds
| (they become quieter). That is what reduces the overall
| dynamic range. Making the loud sounds quieter.
|
| Most compressors then have a 'make up' gain control to
| recover the lost volume. That process makes the quieter
| sounds louder.
|
| Your description sounds like an expander.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Presumably there's liability if the viewer is in California. But
| suppose the viewer is on the east coast and the server is in
| California - can the east coaster sue under this law?
| colechristensen wrote:
| No
| benregenspan wrote:
| There's no private right of action under the law, so even CA
| residents can't sue.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Which is really interesting, but also understandable. On the
| one hand, you would think a private rate of action gives
| significantly more eyes for compliance. However, as we've
| seen with prop 65, these kind of things just create a new
| industry for lawyers.
| thaack wrote:
| "Umberg's bill faced resistance from Hollywood giants this
| summer. The Motion Picture Association and Streaming
| Innovators Alliance, which together represent entertainment
| conglomerates including Disney, Paramount, Amazon and
| Netflix, initially opposed the law, arguing that streaming
| ads come from multiple different sources and are hard to
| control. The MPA claimed in-house audio engineers were
| already working on a fix and needed time to solve the issue
| without facing legal threats. However, the group dropped
| its opposition after Umberg added legal provisions
| shielding streamers from lawsuits brought by private
| parties, leaving enforcement up to the state attorney
| general's office. The amended bill passed California's
| state Legislature with overwhelming support from Democrats
| and Republicans."[1]
|
| Wouldn't be shocked if it was a huge nothingburger
| enforcement wise.
|
| [1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/06/dial-it-down-
| califo...
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'd vote to ban all Cal Worthington ads. Those ads made late
| night TV utterly unwatchable.
| bbaron63 wrote:
| What will happen to his dog Spot?
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45499281
| Simulacra wrote:
| Car commercials have to be the worst, and the cheaper the car,
| the louder the commercial.
| tehjoker wrote:
| This kind of stuff (regulation) only happens because the industry
| recognizes that they're in an arms race that they can't stop that
| will cause people to stop watching TV.
| sixothree wrote:
| I literally can't stand watching football because of this. The
| commercials are so frequent, and the volume is so loud, that you
| can't even talk to the people in the room with you. Especially
| considering the volume is already high to allow for people
| wandering away and to also be audible over the conversations.
| kristianc wrote:
| Heh, this is the kind of "minor harm" regulation I'd typically
| associate with Britain rather than the US. Is the culture
| shifting, or is this just a California thing?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'd say mostly a California thing, though there are a number of
| states that sooner-or-later tend to adopt the same ideas that
| California leads on.
| jjice wrote:
| I think California does this kind of thing a lot. A while back,
| they began requiring cancer warning at coffee shops [0].
|
| I'm not in California, but growing up at least, I associated it
| was goofy small laws like this (along with not so goofy real
| laws as well).
|
| [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-cancer-warning-
| judge-...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Note that your example is not a new "goofy small law", but an
| industry losing a lawsuit because of complete failure to
| present relevant evidence in a lawsuit applying a long-
| established, big (but maybe still goofy) law to them.
| nomel wrote:
| With the result being a goofy warning on something benign.
| The practical result, that helps no-one (probably harms,
| with desensitization of cancer warnings through obvious
| government driven misapplication/ineptitude), is what makes
| it a goofy law.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| This particular California law applies a rule applied to TV by
| a 2010 US federal law to modern media that have largely
| replaced TV. (It is even named after the federal law.)
|
| So, as a broad kind of concern, no, it is not just a California
| thing.
| davidrossaudio wrote:
| In Australia there's the OP-59 loudness spec that any piece of
| broadcast content has to meet. It dictates maximum average
| loudness level across the program as well as short term loudness
| and true peak loudness. It's also the standard in the UK I
| believe. Is there not a similar spec for TV in America? If I
| mixed something for TV here and it didn't meet the OP-59 standard
| it would get rejected by the broadcaster.
| Retric wrote:
| US equivalent:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Advertisement_Loudn...
| starlust2 wrote:
| We also need that for brightness. The brightness on Amazon
| Prime TV ads is painful. I literally hide under a blanket until
| they are done.
| Skullfurious wrote:
| Fuck that stupid fight network ad on PlutoTV where it plays the
| tinnitus sound effect.
| wpollock wrote:
| Thank goodness this isn't an issue on HN.
|
| SMELLY CUTICLES? BUY OUR CUTICLE DEODORANT!
|
| Seriously, how come TVs don't come with companders built in?
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Imagine having to regulate this, and what it means of the the
| advertisers and the streaming services that allow it...
|
| Yet more proof that advertising is psychological assault and
| advertisers are malicious entities.
|
| Block ads for your data safety, your sanity and your comfort
| level in your own home. Feel no remorse for a morally-bankrupt
| industry riddled with scammers and grifters. Anything that would
| be lost in the absence of advertising was not worth having in the
| first place.
| charcircuit wrote:
| By this definition anyone talking to you is socialy
| manipulating you. Manipulation is an every day part of life and
| it's not healthy to try and avoid it as it means you must cut
| off all social interaction.
|
| There is a beauty in how humans can impact other humans in how
| they act and think. How they choose to group up. What they
| spend their time doing. Working together to accomplish things.
| Helping each other.
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