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Finally, the United States Government is tackling the important issues like annoying telemarketing calls from unknown numbers and now TV commercials that air at a volume twice that of the show you are watching.
You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re sitting there watching something on a streaming service like Hulu, it goes to a commercial break and IT’S SUDDENLY SO LOUD.
Well, according to Nextgov.com, that might be changing soon. Thank goodness.
“I authored the CALM Act in 2010 with Senator [Sheldon] Whitehouse to put an end to the booming ads on TV that were highly annoying for consumers,” said Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. “Since the law was enacted, new popular streaming services have recreated the practice of loud ads because the old law doesn’t apply to them, and consumers continue to complain about loud ads on broadcast, cable and satellite TV.”
This new bill, called the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Modernization Act, would eliminate the loophole to the 2010 law that streaming services have been using to air their ridiculously loud commercials.
“Consumers are fed up with advertisers blaring TV commercials at disruptively high volumes because of a weak FCC enforcement regime and a loophole for streaming TV,” said Whitehouse. “I’m pleased to partner with Congresswoman Eshoo to strengthen our CALM Act to clamp down on loud ads on streaming platforms and give viewers a break.”
“Loud commercials can be incessant, annoying and unnecessary,” Senator Tammy Duckworth said. “The CALM Modernization Act is a common-sense, easy solution to build upon a law that’s already been established for more than a decade and improve the lives of everyday Americans.”
Man, if the government can put an end to absurdly loud commercials on streaming services and stop the never-ending calls from an unknown number (which we all know to ignore, while still being annoyed), that would be two huge first world problems eliminated, allowing us more time to find other things to complain about like NFT and cryptocurrency scams.