Dumb & Dumber

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill ordering that TV commercials must be no louder than the programming. The U. S. House has the same thing under consideration.

This is such a stupid waste of time and money, so void of logic, that ONLY the U.S. Congress could make such an effort.

First, understand that "loudness" from your TV is dependent on several factors. First, of course, is the level of the signal on the recorded commercial - or on the live program. But, whether the audio originates from microphones in the studio, from a network signal, or from a recording of a commercial or a program, it evolves to an electronic signal sent to the station's transmitting equipment. On the way it encounters a piece of equipment called a "limiter" which controls the maximum volume. If a signal is too strong, it lowers the level. It is automatic and it is required by FCC regulation.

The next factor is the nature of the audio. If it is an announcer describing a product, that announcer will be speaking directly to his microphone as clearly and distinctly as possible. If that is not the case, believe me, the announcer will have to re-record his/her lines. His signal will come across at full permissible volume.

If it is a dramatic program, where a small voice is sobbing into a handkerchief, or an actor mumbling as he/she turns away from the microphones, that voice will be lower in volume. If it is a car chase with screaming sirens and screaming mood music, it will be maximum loudness.

Finally, and often the deciding factor, are the speaker(s) on your TV set. If the speaker(s) and their associated audio amplifier are such that they are more sensitive to higher frequencies, commercials or programming such as music, which contain predominantly higher frequencies, will sound louder on your TV.

I make TV commercials. How can I control the sound to match all the possible variations in the volume level of TV programming? I cannot. How can I control the sound to match all the possible speaker configurations of the nation's TV sets? I cannot.

Can the TV station do that? Of course not. Listening on high quality TV station monitors, the station engineer may hear something much different than you hear coming from the small, inefficient speaker(s) on your TV set.

Let's compare the audio level to the picture level on your screen. Should every twilight scene be adjusted to match every bright sunlit scene - or vice-versa? Absurd.

The last thing a TV broadcast station wants is to broadcast anything that viewers will find offensive; that may drive viewers to another channel. If the problem could be easily solved, it would have been, long ago.

Congress go home. Quit trying to fix things that are not fixable!