New regs for Wednesday: TV ads

The Hill.com reports that Wednesday’s edition of the Federal Register contains new rules for the volume of TV commercials, cable and satellite providers that air political commercials, military reserve healthcare plans and truck drivers with diabetes.

Here’s what is happening:

TV commercials: The Federal Communications Commission is moving forward with a rule intended to make TV commercials quieter, the agency announced Tuesday.

The FCC is trying to prevent TV commercials from being startlingly louder than the shows that viewers are watching. While such rules already exist through the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, the agency is making changes that would further restrict the volume of commercials.

The rules incorporate a new way of measuring the loudness of a commercial.

“It is our hope that these changes will result in a modest decrease in the perceived loudness of certain commercials,” the agency wrote.

They go into effect on June 4, 2015.