New CA Bill Aims To Ban Loud Commercials On Streaming Platforms

You'd be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't been in this scenario: You're watching your favorite show on Netflix when suddenly a commercial comes on at an ear-splitting volume.

A lawmaker in California is determined to change that with Senate Bill 576, which would prohibit streaming services like Hulu and Netflix from airing commercial advertisements that have audio levels that are louder than the service's content.

“I’m guessing that all of you have been annoyed when you’re … streaming television, and a commercial comes on and it is exponentially louder than the other shows,” Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) told his colleagues on the Senate floor in May.

He looked around the chamber. “You see heads nodding aye.”

Umberg, whose bill is flying through the Legislature with bipartisan support, told CalMatters that this is the most popular bill he's ever introduced.

A law like this one already exists at the federal level. It's called the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, which was passed in 2010 after the FCC received more than 13,000 complaints about commercial volumes. That bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, according to Umberg. However, that law only applied to broadcast and cable TV.

Since the advent of streaming services, companies have been able to operate in a loophole.

According to Umberg, 83 percent of U.S. households use at least one streaming service.

"At the same time, the era of universally ad-free streaming has been fading," he said. "Many platforms have introduced tiered subscription models that require consumers to pay a premium to avoid commercials, bringing ad-supported viewing, and the loudness of those ads, back into focus for millions of users."

Opponents of the bill, which include the Motion Picture Association and the Streaming Innovation Alliance, argue that the bill is not practical for the streaming environment and that many streaming services already take steps to minimize commercial loudness.

But Umber told CalMatters he isn't buying that argument.

“I have a great deal of faith in the entertainment industry, in the technology that they both currently use and are developing, that if they can make ads louder, they can make them less loud,” Umberg said.

Umberg was inspired to author the bill after his staffer told him that his baby was woken up by a loud ad on a streaming platform.

“Her father, at the behest of the baby’s mother, brought a bill idea to me,” Umberg said, according to CalMatters. “I thought, ‘That’s a good bill idea,’ so we introduced it.”