A piece of legislation that frankly has me conflicted
By Joliphant Posted in Archived — Comments (49) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Do you like to watch television ?
At night or in the mornings ??
Have you noticed that some commercials are unusually loud ??
I mean really really loud ?? Loud enough to knock you out of a pleasant slumber ??
Yep me too. Usually I just note the advertiser and try to never ever do business with them.
Well it seems this isn't good enough for some of our congress critters. They have introduced H.R. 6209
The CALM Act (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act)
(Since when did it become a requirement that legislation needed a cute acronym ??)
To require the Federal Communications Commission to prescribe a standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes than the program material they accompany.
Its a nice idea on the surface. My first response was yes, I won't have those annoying jewelers that advertise on FOX waking me up in the morning.
Then I thought hold it. Just what is the government doing screwing with private businesses ?? I mean isn't this between the television channel, the advertiser and me ?? Wasn't it bad enough when they started playing games with the NFL and baseball? Last but not least whatever happened to free speech ?
Then just to complicate things I realized I get my television from the local cable monopoly. So it isn't between me, the television station and the advertiser. You have to throw in the cable company (which is usually responsible for the really loud ads) and the politicians they bought off to get the franchise. (Yes they did buy them off. It was the way things were done).
So now I have the question is it ok for congress to stomp on a monopoly that was more than likely created by questionable means for the purpose of improving the lot of the citizenry ??
Just to complicate things further, the only places I notice the loud tactic still being used are the local commercials the cable companies insert. The national stations and even my local stations have gone to some sort of volume normalization that prevents excessively loud commercials.
So is this a piece of legislation that is needed or something that will take care of itself
I am happy for it and upset at the same time.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
It's their place to intervene and fix the franchise monopoly payoff scams.
The head of the NYC democratic party committed suicide because it came to light he had been involved in a payoff scandal with paragon cable.
What was the upside ?? Nothing.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
is there ANYTHING that people can do for themselves anymore? Remote control anyone?
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
...available pretty much everywhere.
And "steady sound" functions on virtually every TV.
And the ability to change the channel.
And the fact that if the government regulates sound volume on private channels broadcast through private cable companies to private citizens, that's not a door we want opened.
Oh, and there are books!
Not a public health issue. Not an issue of society-debasing poverty, not an issue of public safety, not a national security issue, not interstate commerce, and so not an issue anyone should like the government getting involved in unless it's proven that deafness results.
but I'll bet you that if you did a random survey of Americans, you would find well over 90% would support this legislation. This is one of those things that touches anyone who watches TV (a very, very large % of the population). Right or wrong, it would get huge support, and I'll bet you it passes through Congress virtually unanimously.
Just a theory, of course.
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...I bet 90% of Americans would demand that their Doritos be even more Nacho Cheesier. The point has to do with priorities and jurisdiction, nothing else. The consumer preferences of Americans are best dealt with by producers, in cases like this. There is no societal benefit to having quieter commercials or cheesier snack foods. None. Congress would be wasting their time on this topic.
and I must admit I was not clear on it.
Policy wonks on Redstate and other places can pontificate 'til the cows come home about how anti-capitalist or "nanny state" a particular policy thing is... whoop de do. That means exactly jack. No one cares except those of us who like to microanalyze everything the government does. Fact is that stuff like this sells in DC, and representatives will continue to propose and pass such legislation as long as the masses like it.
It won't be a waste of time to the legislature who can tell a constituent "look at the great thing I did for you!" It's just like the Do-Not-Call list..."no societal benefit", but people think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
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“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. ” - Martin Luther
I haven't had to torture a telemarketer since it came out. I didn't even sign up for it and have had my unsolicited calls drop to nothing.
My business still receives an unforgivable amount. They are literally steeling employee time with robocalls but hopefully it will go away.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
It's about the only way for some business to continue. Telemarketers hire a lot of low-income employees. I actually would love to see the repeal of the no-call legislation. If you don't want to talk to them, hang up.
Now also found at The Minority Report
Look at it like this.
If you put up a sign saying no peddlers or salesman how would you feel if someone came on your property anyway.
Bottom line antagonizing your customers is no way to make a business.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I wouldn't feel much. Cycling my 12 ga shotgun would get them off my property quickly enough.
(Yes, I liked Secondhand Lions)
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Dependence is Slavery.
as a teenager many, many years ago, yes, you always ignore those signs. Because the vast majority of them are put up by the husbands who don't want their wives buying anything.
The worst that they can do is close the door or point at the sign, and honestly, sales at those houses were probably higher on average than others.
So you had no problem violating the property rights of the landowner for the sake of scoring yourself a few bucks, tresspassing in the process?
Where is it you live? I can call up the JWs, Mormons and some encyclopedia and vacumn cleaner sales companies and send them over to your place.
Regularly.
I understand that folks need to make a living but, frankly, if I want to buy what you're selling, I'll find it for myself.
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Dependence is Slavery.
It's pretty much settled law that people can knock on your door, assuming it's not behind a gated fence, so that's not a right you have.
And no, I didn't particularly like doing it, which was one of the reasons I didn't keep the job for very long. But I was told in training that this was true, and, in fact, it appeared to be so.
On the other hand, if you had a sign on your door that said you were a daytime sleeper with a night job, or had an infant, those I would avoid.
That's the society in which we live today...it seems a majority of this country doesn't think any business, local or state government can do anything...We have to have federal laws to fix every problem and when it comes to this issue...which really ticks me off I suspect a vast majority would support Congress in this
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
AHHHH not convicted...CONFLICTED!
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
Your cable co is a monopoly don't kid yourself about them.
http://consumerist.com/tag/exclusives/?i=5018081&t=internal-comcast-powe...
They don't kid themselves about it. They know they have monopolies and abuse them as much as is humanly possible. I see no trouble making their lives heck until either they treat their captives customers better or they give up their monopoly status.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
and I told them exactly that when I tried to subscribe to their service and they refused to run a cable up to my newly built house. They strung me along for a month, saying "we'll be running service in there any day now." And stupidly, I went along with their line of malarkey, for about a month. I finally called and said "So WHEN EXACTLY are you going to hook it up?" And the schmuck at the other end said "not for a while, because you're in a new subdivision". So I said (and this is a direct quote) "Do you people realize that you have competition?" I told him that I was no longer interested in their services and that I'd be subscribing to DishNetwork for my TV and the local telco for telephony and high-speed Internet....which I did. Charter Cablevision is the biggest joke of a cable company on the planet, and fortunately we DO have several valid alternatives...and this is one situation where they are feeling it. They have lost many, many customers to satellite TV and DSL high-speed internet. I'd say I know more people in the STL area with DSL than with cable modem service, and virtually every house in this subdivision has a dish for TV.
I'm very much for busting monopolies - I'm free of cable, and almost free of Microsoft (I'm still cursed with Offus, but hopefully we'll be off of that by next year)
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“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. ” - Martin Luther
Have you tried OpenOffice?
It is the free alternative to MS Office that, they say, still saves and opens in the Office file formats.
I haven't tried it at home as the school I go to online is VERY specific about file formatting.
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Dependence is Slavery.
For a while it was the only office tool that my wife and kids used. The problem is that it's not...quite...100%. That last half a percent of incompatibility bites me on the butt every time. As a Mac user in a sea of Windows users where I work, I have to exchange Offus docs with all my cohorts, and that means the documents have to look the same to me as they do to them. OO works pretty good, but particularly in Powerpoint I have little niggly problems with stuff like fonts, bullets, etc. The latest OO is way better than the older V1 releases were. And I'm hoping for even better with V3...there's even an official OS X port in V3.
There's a rumor going 'round that we'll be dumping Offus sometime in the near term, and if that happens, I'll bet that OpenOffice is the replacement. If that happens, then I'll be in good shape. I can only hope...
The Unofficial RedState FAQ
“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. ” - Martin Luther
I'll check it out then.
I'm good with powerpoint, but I primarily use Word for school.
Papers and such.
I need to make them in word and save them in rtf formatting, but they're pretty sticky about the formatting of the document.
Thanks.
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Dependence is Slavery.
Other areas not so much.
Even so though broadband usually boils down to a duopoly situation. (I actually have both and other). Truth be told they are equally bad in their customer service. ATT has call centers from heck that lie lie lie. Comcast has better call centers but no implementation what so ever. Their techs will come out and pantomime that they are doing something.
I must admit they have balls. It must take a certain kind of something to walk into a mans office where he has a degree in electrical engineering and professional engineers license on the wall, an oscilloscope in the corner a lanalyzer, in general better test equipment than they have and try to slide one past him. But they do.
One of these days my Cable internet will be fast and able to stay up more than three hours without a network disconnect. Of course by that time I will probably have fiber from the telco or wimax.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I read a story, not too long ago now, maybe in the last week...
ATT is on a list with a few others like TimeWarner to change internet usage programs back to the old dial-up method of charges.
Rather than per minute or per hour charges though, it'd be per GB of data.
They're testing it now in some market with a 2GB limit, with additional charges per GB.
Now, for many it would just mean they watch less 'adult videos' online.... however, for some like myself, it sucks for ACTUAL reasons.
My schooling is online, including the textbooks and even video lectures that can last 10 minutes to half an hour.
What other new charges are going to come up to soak up even more of what paycheck I have left after the government takes 1/3 of it?
Will Chevy start to charge me a "Legacy Fee" because I drive a car they no longer make?
Crap, maybe I shouldn't give them that idea.
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Dependence is Slavery.
Or in this case a duopoly (And lets face it as unreliable as they may be, wireless is downright impossible for serious work) this wouldn't matter. You would just shift to a different service provider.
In this case though if through some odd coincidence the phone company and the cable company get the same idea in the same same market at the same time (I know never happen) you are screwed.
So yes once again I say if the business is a state granted monopoly they should expect the government to shove its hand up their collective anus and move their mouths for them.
If the company doesn't like it they should consider abandoning their exclusive rights to an area.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I have Cox cable and it works alright. We do have problems from time to time, but Cox is generally ok with coming out and fixing the problem at no charge.
Now, something that ticks me off is the power company.
Our power company has issues. When the wind blows we have power spikes and the power cuts out for a fraction of a second (long enough to screw everything up)
In the spring it happens at least once a day or two.
We've called the power company to complain and they've said that the wind causes power surges and, for an additional 10 bucks a month, they'll put a special unit on our house to keep that from happening.
So, to clarify.... their equipment is unable to deal with air moving, and they want me to pay extra for them to properly give me the electricity that we pay for.
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Dependence is Slavery.
I went solar with battery storage just because of the legendary reliability of FPL.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
We've thought about it. Kind of expensive for our tastes, even with the returns one can get.
We've kicked around the idea of designing a wind mill type device for our roof to make use of the CONSTANT wind we get, even have a design feature to protect it if the wind blows too hard.
Not sure we'll ever build it or set it up though... Oklahoma City is a bit too "You need a permit"-happy.
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Dependence is Slavery.
Ultimately people are going to have to pay for what they use, as the amount they use goes up, and up, and up.
Right now high-end users get a cheap ride subsidized by the low-end users, but that's just not sustainable. And less so if the market were opened to competition.
to disagree. Cell phones have gone the other way. And I like it.
Internet providers already tried that pricing model. It didn't work.
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Just like PayPal, except it's free and a $25 bonus to sign up!
Which is a thank god situation as I use nearly 3000 minutes a month.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
You must be on the phone all day long (for work I'm guessing....). I don't have unlimited in total, but the mobile to mobile and weekends are unlimited which makes up the bulk of my phone calls and allows us to not have a home phone.
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Just like PayPal, except it's free and a $25 bonus to sign up!
The other thing I love is my plan is 40 bucks a month. It just can't be beat. ( I do get lousy pricing on phones though)
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I see it working the other way.
When the internet providers started up as a common commercial service, we were charged per minute.
People complained and they eventually moved to unlimited time.
They charged for speed. It was less expensive for dialup than for cable, less for cable than T-1, etc.
Now they are still going to charge per speed, but now also for activity.
They're going backwards, as I see it.
Look at cell phones. I remember when cell phones charged you in 3 minute blocks.
Then per minute.
Then per second.
Now you can get 'unlimited' plans. No charges for incoming minutes, no charges for calls from certain carriers, or for 5, 10 or 20 numbers of your choosing.
No charges for calls on weekends or evenings.
etc.
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Dependence is Slavery.
1) Charter Cable, maybe 1/2-3/4 the price of DSL
2) Local telco (CenturyTel) DSL, which is actually quite good
3) Newly-established city-wide WiFi network, at the same prices as DSL.
I haven't heard any reports on the WiFi network yet, but they claim they support up to 6Mb ($50/mo) and will make sure you have good reception - I've actually seen them installing WAPs on light poles around my subdivision. And even tho' CenturyTel is a smallish telco, they have delivered very good service with well-trained techs, solid performance (my 6Mb connection is a solid, unwavering 6Mb and I can count the number of outages in 3 years on one hand), but it's a little higher than AT&T, Verizon, etc. in areas around us.
As far as satellite TV goes, I'm ready to dump DishNetwork. Their latest stunt of re-organizing the HD channels, dumping the Voom channels and replacing them with others really, really ticked me off. It ruined my reception (they moved the HD channels to a satellite that is too low on the horizon) and the technicians they send out can barely use multisyllable words. I think I'll be moving to DirecTV shortly, especially now that they have a much better HD lineup. They have 40 or so HD channels (not counting PPV and premium), whereas CATV has about 10, and Dish has about 25.
So yeah, I have choices here.
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“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. ” - Martin Luther
I'm glad you like your CenturyTel. I can count the number of outages that I have had this week on one hand. Just about every day for the last week I have been down for an hour. Techs can't figure it out. It may be that I'm in an older neighborhood? I don't really know.
Now also found at The Minority Report
That's crazy. May be the older neighborhood. All of our lines are underground and the equipment's all new (well, 2 or so years old, so not brand new, but close). Plus, I live very close to a fiber drop (and I think to a central office). All of those things lead to better reliability for DSL. And...I always ask for the same guy to come back when/if I need service, because he knows the neighborhood hookups and is well-trained in DSL equipment. The last time I had an issue (static on my line), I KNEW it was not my issue, as I had swapped out all the filters, etc. The yutz on the phone wanted to send a wiring person, because they were just sure it was in my house. I told them in no uncertain terms to send out the DSL tech because I knew it was NOT my house. So they did, and sure enough, he found bad equipment at the neighborhood junction.
As usual, YMMV.
The Unofficial RedState FAQ
“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. ” - Martin Luther
That happened last time I had a Charter outage. The guy in India didn't lie, he just ran out of script. Then the American guy I had lied to me and tried to tell me it was the fault of my equipment. I had already been downtown and found the public cloud was out, too, and I had also learned from Charter's own messages during the hold that they had a serious outage in another state that day.
Of course, this is a ludicrous area for the government to intervene. Surely the market can find a way to neutralize loud commercials if there is a demand for such a product.
On the other hand, if we can drag out the debate on this bill, and distract the attention of legislators to this bill so that they have less time to do some real damage, then maybe this is a worthwhile sacrificial lamb to create a diversion.
In brief, will yielding on this minor issue weaken the opposition or enbolden them?
I can't make this call since I don't have TV and thus don't have any sense as to how strong of a public groundswell is behind this bill.
But political survival does involve pragmatic calculation as to when to hold the fort in the face of a rising tide versus when to relocate to higher land...
a broadcast standard to the effect that the peak sound level on commercials could not be higher than the peak sound level on the programs.
The advertisers would then set the sound level at a constant level that represented the peak.
All that said, I'd rather have them fiddling with this stuff than writing the farm bill...
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
All that said, I'd rather have them fiddling with this stuff than writing the farm bill...
In other words, keep 'em tied up fussing over the little stuff so they don't have time to screw up on the important stuff.
I saw something...whether it was a report or documentary I'm not sure but it told how advertisers invented a way to beat the legislation you mention, and smart sound on your TV that had to do with the bandwidth of sound.
If you see a sound wave it looks like a series of waves with peaks and valleys.
The Law...and the Smart sound feature on most TV works by limiting the level of the peaks...or the loudest point of the sound. In order to get around this advertisers brought the valleys of the wave up making the overall sound from the ad louder while still complying with the law and defeating the smart sound feature on your TV
"A political party cannot be all things to all men."--Ronald Wilson Reagan
Now, thanks primarily to Tivo, they're working on moving back to product placement IN the shows, just like the old days.
Maybe not as obvious.
I've already seen it here and there. Normally you don't see brands in TV shows, or hear brands specifically said in lines, but I've seen some soda cans and chip bags very carefully facing the camera.
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Dependence is Slavery.
There was a time that the FCC regulated volume, for this very reason.
Then they stopped.
Frankly, for a while, one selling point of some televisions was that it would adjust the volume for you, instantly, in situations like this.
Private Sector solved a problem. But the Government hasn't regulated it for a while, so they think they probably should.
How about this, Government.... Successfully regulate our Friggen BORDERS and then we'll talk about regulating the volume on my tv.
My main volume concern is not that the tv suddenly gets loud. I have a mute button. Maybe the advertisers will start harping on the cable companies once they learn that alot of us hit the mute button (At least, those of us who don't have tivo yet to just skip the commercials)
If I am watching a movie and the talking (Pfft... talking.... it is just loud whispering) is being overpowered by the 'mood music' . . . we have a greater problem.
Of course, I imagine those who make movies just assume that everyone has a super-duper 3 bazillian dollar sound system, to 'properly' watch television.
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Dependence is Slavery.
Commercials? What the heck are those???? I haven't seen one in probably a year. Okay that's a slight exaggeration, but not much.
Everyone, get DVR/TiVo. You won't know how you got along without it.
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Just like PayPal, except it's free and a $25 bonus to sign up!
who might be doing the best they can to manage their content.
I'm inclined to wonder why they don't all get audio compressors to set a threshold but even with that feeling, I don't think it needs to be mandated.
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