TV advertisements too loud?
One of the biggest complaints from television viewers is the high volume levels of advertisements in comparison with normal programming. The issue made headlines recently when US Congresswoman Anna Eshoo found that the high ad volume levels were a common complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, and subsequently drafted a bill aimed at preventing TV ads from playing noticeably louder than the programs they sponsor.
US lawmakers approved the “Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM)” in mid-December last year in a bid to restrict television advertisements to be no louder than the programs during which they appear.
Locally no such interventions are on the cards, and despite the fact that companies like MultiChoice are well aware of the irritation which the loader advertisements cause, the complaints are unlikely to change the current ad volume levels.
DStv consumer complaints
One DStv subscriber wrote in 2008 that “the sound levels between programs and the advertisements are so great that I must sit with the remote in my hand all the time to reduce the volume during advertisements.”
At the time DStv admitted to the problem of higher volumes for advertisements, and a MultiChoice representative said: “This is a recognised problem and MNet is in the process of adjusting the ad loudness to the level of the main programing content.”
A recent poll on MyBroadband confirms that DStv subscribers find the louder advertisements irritating. According to the poll over 90% of consumers say that the advertisements are louder than normal programming, and most subscribers find this particularly annoying.
“On certain shows/channels it’s so much louder that the household wakes up when the ads come on, it’s a scramble for the remote,” said one DStv user.
“It’s louder all right. Even volume levels across channels are different. Having to operate volume levels while watching TV is becoming a huge issue for me. When I get rid of DStv, this will be one of the major issues,” said another.
MultiChoice responds
MultiChoice confirmed the higher volume levels in a written statement regarding the issue, but said that it is the industry standard. “The industry standard is that advertisement volume levels are higher than those of programming. The difference should not be big enough to turn down the volume,” a MultiChoice spokesperson said.
MultiChoice added that the advertising volume levels of international channels are out of their control. “We are able to normalize audio levels but we need to monitor the channel first. We also only control the audio on local channels. We do not control the audio on foreign channels, and only intervene if the audio is out of range/ too loud.”
TV ads too loud? Give your views
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