By Ryan Sabalow, CalMatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill banning ads that are significantly louder than the shows on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.
Even the governor of California is fed up with the annoyingly loud ads that pop up when he streams his favorite shows.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday that bans streaming services like Netflix and Hulu from playing ads significantly louder than the programming they accompany.
Newsom signs hundreds of bills each year with little fanfare, typically saving signing announcements only for the measures he and his team consider most notable or in which the governor is personally invested.
He sent one to announce that he had signed Senate Bill 576.
“We heard Californians loud and clear, and what is clear is that they do not want commercials louder than the level at which they previously enjoyed a program,” Newsom wrote. “By signing SB 576, California is reducing this inconvenience on streaming platforms.”
The law would ensure that streaming platforms meet the same standards as a 15-year-old federal law that limits how loud television and cable channels can make their ads.
President Barack Obama signed the Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act in 2010, which gave the Federal Communications Commission authority to issue rules ensuring that the average volume of TV commercials does not exceed the volume of the programs they accompany.
Streaming services were still emerging at the time. Members of Congress have since tried to add streaming platforms to the bill, but two 2023 federal bills went unheard.
Lawmakers don’t like loud ads
The bill wasn’t a tough sell for its author, the Democratic senator. Tom Umberg from Santa Anna. It passed the legislature, but none of California’s 120 lawmakers voted against it.
Omberg told CalMatters This summer, he came up with the idea for the bill after his legislative director, Zach Keller, told him how a loud advertisement woke up his infant daughter, Samantha Rose, while the adults were trying to relax and watch a show.
“This bill was inspired by baby Samantha and every exhausted parent who finally gets a baby to sleep, but a blaring streaming ad undoes all that hard work,” Umberg said in a statement to Newsom’s. “SB 576 brings much-needed peace and quiet to California households by ensuring that streaming ads are no louder than the programs we actually want to watch.”
The measure faced opposition from California’s influential entertainment industry, including the Motion Picture Association of America, which has donated at least $204,000 to lawmakers since 2015. CalMatters Digital Democracy Database.
Opponents argued that the measure would be difficult to implement because streaming services do not have the same control over advertising volumes as traditional broadcasters.
Originally published:
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