The CALM Act of 2012 was designed by Anna Eshoo to set a limit on the allowed volume of a commercial advertisement on television. According to the legend, the idea of the Act originated when the Congresswoman was interrupted by a loud TV commercial during the family dinner. After the CALM Act of 2012 was enforced, the number of complaints began to gradually decrease, however it never ended. This is because the law was not perfect, and there were ways to bypass the loudness limitation while still airing a loud commercial. With the COVID-19 pandemic, people began to spend more time watching TV, and the number of complaints increased by 140 percent, which is evidence of the Act’s mixed results (Yang et al., 2021). Most of it is attributed to the alternative ways of saturating the sound of the audio track, such as compressing, which makes the quiet frequencies louder without increasing the overall level of loudness of the mix.
Reference
Yang, J., Xie, Y., Krishnamurthi, L., & Papatla, P. (2021). Express: High-energy ad content: A large-scale investigation of TV commercials. Journal of Marketing Research, Web.