California moves to outlaw too-loud advertisements on streaming services

This will complement federal (national) legislation in the United States that already sets standards for controlling the volume of advertisements on broadcast TV and cable channels. It is known as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act and came into force in 2010. 

However, at that time streaming services were not commonplace and they were therefore excluded from the federal legislation. In recent years, streaming services have become the main viewing option for many Americans. 

“We heard Californians loud and clear, and what’s clear is that they don’t want commercials at a volume any louder than the level at which they were previously enjoying a programme,” the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom said when he signed the new bill last week. 

Added State Senator Thomas Umberg, who introduced the bill: “This bill was inspired by baby Samantha and every exhausted parent who’s finally gotten a baby to sleep, only to have a blaring streaming ad undo all that hard work.” 

Samantha is the daughter of one of Umberg’s staff members, who told him about a noisy ad waking up his infant daughter while he was watching a streaming show. 

Opposition to the new law 

But there was initially opposition to the legislation from the Motion Picture Association and the Streaming Innovation Alliance, which represent streaming services including Disney and Netflix. 

“They said they do not have the ability to control volume settings on the devices on which their content is offered, unlike broadcast and cable TV providers,” the BBC reports. 

“Streaming ads come from several different sources and cannot necessarily or practically be controlled. 

“The bill was later amended with a legal provision that would bar individuals or private parties from suing streaming services for violating the law.”