Thank the freak.
The
FCC has a page set up about the new rule, and where to report violators.
Q: Will the new rules eliminate the problem of loud commercials?
A: The rules should eliminate any systematic
difference between the loudness of commercials and the loudness of the
programming they accompany. The ATSC practice that Congress directed us
to adopt does not set an absolute cap on loudness. Rather, it requires
commercials to have the same average volume as the programming they
accompany, so that the volume a consumer chooses is the one at which
both the programming and the advertisements will air. We hope and expect
that compliance with this practice will significantly reduce the
problem of loud commercials for consumers.
This is all well and good, but what about enforcement? The Do Not
Call list’s enforcement has been questionable. While the Do Not Call
List works great for me, it hasn’t helped my friend Matt, or my parents,
who are seniors, and who routinely get barraged by calls (apparently
there’s a whole “thing” about telemarketing predators who go after
seniors with scams, etc.)
I know when I’ve written about loud TV commercials before there were
some naysayer libertarian types (though they may have been conservative
trolls) who worried about the impact on our overall freedom of limiting
the volume of absurdly screeching TV commercials (first they came for
the loud tv commercials…). And I have a few responses to that.
First off, while I do buy the argument that we have to be careful of
creeping infringements on our freedom, I tend to think that admonishment
has more to do with, oh I don’t know, AT&T letting the government tap our phones without a warrant than the FCC taking away your right to yell in my eardrum because you think it will make me buy more Skittles.
But even more importantly, I have a theory. I’ve not found anything
online about it, but just wait a few years. It’s about loud TV
commercials and
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),
an anxiety disorder that can affect people who have been through an
extremely stressful even
t.
Things are better now, but loud noise still sets me off
more than it should. And one of the loud noises that upsets me the most
are TV commercials.
I am convinced that there’s a link between PTSD and loud TV
commercials. I’m not saying that the commercials necessarily cause
PTSD, but I know for a fact that they aggravate it. The loud noise
coming on every five minutes, it can be jarring, depending on the
commercial. And for me at least, when the commercials really start to
get on my nerves – they all have loud fast, excitable music, all of them
– I get that familiar unsettling feeling start to well up that tells me
this isn’t a “normal” reaction to the noise.
There are a lot of people in this country, especially military, who are suffering from symptoms of PTSD.
Estimates are that between 4% and 17% of US Iraq war vets have PTSD (a recent study
showed 30% of vets treated by the VA have PTSD). How many vets is that?
Nearly 250,000.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has quietly released a new report on post-traumatic stress disorder, showing that since 9/11, nearly 30 percent of the 834,463 Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans treated at V.A. hospitals and clinics have been diagnosed with PTSD.
It also affects cancer patients, among others.
From Cancer.gov:
Reviews of the literature [1]
note that post-traumatic stress has been studied in a variety of
cancers, including melanoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, breast cancer, and mixed
cancers. The incidence of the full syndrome of post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) (meeting the full Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, fourth edition [DSM-IV], diagnostic criteria) ranges
from 3% to 4% in early-stage patients recently diagnosed to 35% in
patients evaluated after treatment. When incidence of PTSD-like symptoms
(not meeting the full diagnostic criteria) are measured, the rates are
higher, ranging from 20% in patients with early-stage cancer to 80% in
those with recurrent cancer.
I’ve often wondered how many Americans have PTSD (or borderline
cases) that are being aggravated by the excessive loudness of TV
commercials. And also, putting PTSD aside, to what degree the loudness
of commercials is simply making people more nervous, on edge, and
angrier. I admit I don’t have absolutely proof, but I’ve wondered about
this before.
We watch a LOT of TV – 4 minutes and 39 minutes on average every day.
And that equals a lot of commercials. I just wonder to what degree,
in a society where people already seem to be increasingly agitated as
the years go on, the jarring noise from the idiot box, as my mom calls
it, jumping out at you ever five minutes or so, over a nearly 5 hour
period each day, doesn’t start to take its toll.
Let’s hope these rules work. One concern already, the rules require
“commercials to have the same average volume as the programming they
accompany.”
On another page the FCC explains the dilemma:
A commercial may have louder and quieter moments, but,
overall, it should be no louder than the surrounding programming. This
may mean, however, that some commercials will comply with the new rules,
but still sound “too loud” to some viewers.
Well that’s disconcerting. So the commercials can still be as loud
as they’ve been, so long as they have a less loud period that “averages”
the entire thing out to the same volume level as the show before it.
So if we’re watching a war move, the commercials can quite literally
blow us out of seats, so long as they go silent for a period of time as
well. I can imagine commercials starting with a bang, to get your
attention, then whispering. We’ll have to see how this plays out, but
if the advertisers start abusing the spirt of the rules, we may need to
revisit it.
Still, it’s nice to know that Congress can do something right.
The
Renaissance brought about a revival in classical cookery, including a
1541 edition of a classic Roman cookbook. A 1905 issue of The Strand describes it:
, which explains how the ancient Maya wrote and what their writing really tells us about their history.
Tuesday, Tower Bridge's drawbridge was raised to allow a 50-foot-high
yellow rubber duck to sail down the Thames. It was part of the launch of
"Facebook Fundation, a bursary granting funds and rewards for daft
ideas to encourage Brits to have more fun."
Almost 30 years later, we find out that there were female Rebel pilots in the 1983 film Return of the Jedi. Two of them are finally seen in the Blu-ray version just released.
