- Streamers are now included in ATSC’s advertising volume guide.
- Advertisements should not be louder than the programs before or after them.
- California legislation is driving change across the United States
Almost as long as there have been ads on television, advertisers have tried to make those ads as loud as possible using various technological tricks. After many years of increasingly loud advertisements, the United States introduced volume limits for cable, satellite and broadcast television, but the legislation did not apply to broadcasters – until now.
ATSC, the broadcast standards organization, has published a major revision to its digital television loudness guide. And this version applies to both broadcast and cable transmitters.
The document is called Recommended Practice A/85: Techniques for Setting and Maintaining Audio Volume for Digital Television. And although it is a technical document, the executive summary is simple: STREAMERS, STOP SCREAMING.
What are the rules about overly loud ads?
The legislation was introduced in the early 2010s due to a war over advertising volume: studio tools such as compressors and maximizers can increase the perceived loudness of audio, so advertisers turned everything up to 11 to really grab attention.
When the FCC’s consumer call center began reporting top complaints in 2002, loud advertisements were one of the most common reasons for calling.
There are two key pieces of legislation regarding ad volume in the US. The first is the US Commercial Advertising Volume Mitigation Act, or CALM Act for short. This went into effect in 2012 and requires commercials to have the same average volume as the programs they accompany. Requires television stations, cable operators, and satellite television providers to implement recommended practice A/85. Nonprofit organizations are not covered, but political ads are.
However, streamers are not covered by that legislation, but we live in a world where not only do all major streamers have ad-supported tiers, but today’s TVs and streaming devices also offer many ad-supported free linear streaming TV (FAST) channels.
In 2015, California passed SB 576 to include streaming in its volume reduction rules. That legislation went into effect this month, July 2026, and applies to any service that serves consumers in the state. The revised version of ATSC A/85 effectively does this at the national level.
The guide is not just a list of “don’t do that” items. It recommends best practices in audio measurement, monitoring, production, metadata, dynamic range control, and volume management so that television services can be consistent across multiple platforms and viewers don’t get a different audio experience depending on where they get their programs. If you’re in California, you should already be hearing the benefits.
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