It’s Saturday night.
You are watching the hockey game on CBC’s HNIC. You have some people over and you’ve even made that guacamole dip that everybody raves about. On the screen, the game intensifies as all eyes are glued to the tube and the men hold their breath. Cut to commercial – an ear-piercing spot featuring a monkey in a lab coat dancing to rave music in a white factory with sandwiches. You know the one. I could write a rant solely on this irritating ad but I digress… I know I am not alone in experiencing commercials that are much louder than the programs. What’s the deal?

Here are reasons the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) lists on why program and commercial sound levels vary:
1. ad production techniques (audio compression & reshaping sound/higher frequencies)
2. contrasting sound levels (quiet program therefore ad seems louder)
3. steps involved from creating a TV program to watching it (causes volume to stray from its original levels)

The first point is the most controversial by far. A good analogy that I read somewhere to describe the viewer’s perception on this point is that “the experience is similar to having a flashbulb go off every now and then versus a spotlight shining in your eyes all the time.” Sound familiar? What a superb loophole! This means that because the peak levels of commercials don’t exceed the peak levels of programming, viewers get to experience the same peak level as moments in programs which have explosions, high speed car chases and any other ear-splitting scene…

But how do these “perceived” louder commercials affect viewer behaviour? For me there are two options: press mute immediately or change the channel – unless of course it’s Don Cherry’s turn to comment on the remarkable performance of the Montreal Canadiens (unlikely, I know).

But let’s turn to the advertisers’ side. As previously reported on our blog by an esteemed colleague of mine – in Great Britain, France and the US (to name a few), commercial airtime is bought based on the audience figures of the commercial breaks. Further, in Great Britain, the cost is based on the average audience in the actual minute that the message is aired. However, in Canada commercial airtime is bought based on the average audience figures of the accompanying program…

So why would anybody pay big bucks for an audience (often inferior to the program) only to drive people away with aggravating commercials? Annoying ads have stickiness and eventually you will end up hearing it. We all know the remote is not always handy. Come on, you know what monkey I was talking about earlier. You may not want to admit it, but you know.

And although there are 3rd parties developing methods to battle the loudness effect of commercials with tools that enable users to regulate sound, with all the illegitimate online sources out there for shows, commercial volume issues may be a thing of the past.