Shhhh! TV ads need to keep it down

For anyone annoyed by ads that seem louder than the show in which they're embedded, here's good news: The House of Representatives voted in December to level off those abrupt spikes in volume. The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act was supported by Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. An identical measure was introduced in the Senate.

Current ads can be no louder than the loudest parts of the program they're with, but a quiet scene can be followed by an ad as loud as an earlier explosion. The new bill requires the Federal Communications Commission to adopt industry guidelines on how to process, measure, and transmit audio in a uniform way.

If the bill doesn't pass both houses of Congress, note that some TV sets are equipped with technology that automatically flattens sound spikes. And there's always the mute button.