Ever sit there watching a show then suddenly you get that deafening boom of a really loud commercial? Well that won’t be happening much longer:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday voted unanimously to approve rules implementing legislation that makes it illegal for advertisers to pump up the volume during television commercial breaks.
The law, called the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, aims to answer the complaints of Americans who have for years protested that commercials are too loud.

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today took a major step toward eliminating one of the most persistent problems of the television age – loud commercials,” the FCC said in a statement following the passage of the CALM rules. “Congress gave the Commission, for the first time, authority to address the problem of excessive commercial loudness.”

Of course we will get another deafening sound before long. That will be the sound of Republicans complaining about “over regulation”.