Congressional Action on Commercial Volume

My relatively simple paraphrasing of a bill being passed around Congress right now probably makes the bill seem like something more than it is. So what's the issue? Well it seems that Representative Anna Eshoo of California has put forth a Bill which is known as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. What this in essence means is that when you're watching TV and your show cuts to commercial then you are usually blasted into deafness by the surround sound systems in our houses which means we end up turning the volume up higher the next go around and the vicious circle continues.

What Representative Eshoo is hoping to accomplish with this Bill is to make it a law the the Federal Communications Commission come up with a standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at a louder volume than the program material they are accompanying. Okay. Great. So that will do what? Prevent us from having to use the remote to hit mute? I really don't see the point of this bill and it makes me wonder what exactly Congress is hoping to accomplish at times. Given the fact that we've got rising gas prices, issues with many nations around the world, our military deployed and engaged with opposition forces in two countries and an increasingly bitter campaign heating up for the Presidency, do we really need them to be concerned with the volume of television commercials?

I sat and thought about this for some time. Representative Eshoo is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and I thought that perhaps from that perspective that there would be some insight into why it was even up for consideration. It seems like one of those, "Oh yeah... if we've got time..." types of bills. The types you take care of at the end when you have nothing else to debate or pass. Thankfully there are no amendments to this Bill as yet so there will be no quick passage due to the fact that there are recommendations for pay raises or anything else meant to benefit the members of Congress directly. Nor are there any seemingly partisan issues involved so this is probably one of those bills that will be passed if people give it a bit of consideration.

But seriously... what's the point? As I said, I thought about it for some time and I came up with some ideas as to why it was possible to consider this bill as being beneficial. Well, given that airline and fuel costs are on the rise, more and more people are looking to save money. People are travelling less and we know that not that many are suddenly picking up reading so television is becoming a favorite diversion for many people. I mean that in the nicest way possible of course. I enjoy television as much as the next person and I think that perhaps that if we have this bill passed then I'll have to reach for the remote less in order to mute the television or to turn the volume down during commercials.

If I do that then that means I save on battery power expenditures and so I have to buy less batteries leading to overall cost savings. I will spend less time abusing my ears with high volumes and so my health care costs will decline. I won't be bombarded with proclamations about how this product is superior to that product or how that if I call within the next thirty seconds then I'll get a bonus gift absolutely free but wait there's more! I won't have to listen to innumerable side effects of drugs that are now coming out on the market that I need to talk to my doctor about. Drugs whose side effects are so grim and forboding that I sometimes wonder whether it's even smart to consider even talking to my doctor about it lest that set off some side effects of their own. Hmmm... perhaps there is merit to this bill after all.