Author Topic: Pet Peeve  (Read 5532 times)

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BSB

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Pet Peeve
« on: December 14, 2011, 12:02:52 AM »
FCC acts to quiet blaring TV commercials
Reuters

6:24 PM EST December 13, 2011

U.S. communications regulators cracked down on excessively loud TV commercials on Tuesday, implementing a bill passed last year to quiet commercials to the same volume as the programs they accompany.

The Federal Communications Commission has been fielding viewer complaints about loud commercials almost as long as commercial television has existed, the agency said.
The commission voted unanimously to require TV stations and cable and satellite operators to ensure that the average volume of a commercial does not exceed the average volume of the programming around it.
Commercials for OxiClean stain remover, ShamWow towels and HeadOn pain reliever "will never be the same," FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said at the agency's open meeting.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn added that the agency's latest rulemaking will put an end to the "frightening decibel levels that resulted in considerable alarm, anger and spilt popcorn."

The order adopted on Tuesday implements the CALM Act, authored by Representative Anna Eshoo and signed into law last December.
The California Democrat told Reuters her idea for the bill started after "being subjected to the blast of the high volume of advertisements" while watching a football game with family.

After discovering that loud commercials had been the top complaint to the FCC by consumers for decades, Eshoo said she drew up the bill, never anticipating it would garner such an overwhelming response from consumers and fellow lawmakers.

"While this certainly doesn't resolve the huge challenges that are facing the country ... we may get some peace and quiet in households across the country," she said, adding that the FCC's action came on her birthday.

The new FCC rules enacting the CALM Act will go into effect in a year, giving TV providers until Dec. 13, 2012, to comply.
Using certain equipment and getting certifications from distributors for ads imbedded into programming will satisfy compliance requirements.

BSB

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2011, 12:06:22 AM »

BT

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2011, 12:13:26 AM »
It's a good thing we have a federal government to take care of things like this.

sirs

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2011, 01:12:30 AM »
So true.  Those remotes were getting so bothersome.  Thank God our tax dollars are being used so wisely
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BT

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2011, 01:30:57 AM »
I just don't buy stuff from the seen on tv marketers, nor the car dealers with their come on down schtick.

Lately i have been watching Korean TV and just reading the subtitles.


Amianthus

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2011, 11:09:42 AM »
I've been watching almost exclusively online content that has had the commercials stripped out.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2011, 01:40:24 PM »
This costs virtually nothing in tax dollars. it is a good thing.

They ought to jerk the licenses of those stations that only run infomercials. Every station should be obliged to run something educational or entertaining and people applauding mops and hawking bogus exercise machines are neither.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Christians4LessGvt

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #7 on: December 14, 2011, 05:33:58 PM »
Every station should be obliged to run something educational or entertaining?

Quit your control-freakism.
If you don't like it...dont watch it...turn the channel.
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" - Ronald Reagan - June 12, 1987

sirs

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #8 on: December 14, 2011, 05:41:20 PM »
As I said, those remotes are getting so bothersome & "technical".  Thank God our tax dollars are being used so wisely     
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

sirs

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2011, 05:49:50 PM »
Speaking of near criminal use of tax dollars......tangent alert.........
-----------------------------------------------------------

Cost to tout train that may never be: Millions

Under current plans, the city of San Diego won’t be connected to the proposed California High Speed Rail system until after 2033.

State officials, however, already have spent millions planning for that day.

According to invoices obtained by the Watchdog, the California High-Speed Rail Authority spent more than $3 million on planning for the Los Angeles-to-San Diego corridor in fiscal year 2010-11, even though the agency announced in November that the segment won’t be included in the first phase of the rail system.

One-third of that –  $1 million — was for public relations
.

Given that opposition to the high speed rail is growing, there’s a real chance phase one may never be built, let alone phase two. All that money may be wasted.

The Watchdog asked Rachel Wall, spokeswoman for the California High Speed Rail Authority, to explain why millions were spent on a piece of the project that won’t begin construction for at least 22 years.  ”I know that’s how it looks,” she said, but there were logical reasons why the authority spent the money.

First, she said, just because construction isn’t slated to begin for years doesn’t mean there isn’t work to do in the meantime. A project of this size requires a lot of environmental and engineering paperwork. All that takes time.

Which brought her to the second point: The authority wants to get as much work done as possible in case private investors want to jump in and  fund some part of the project. At this point, the high speed rail project has no private investors, but officials remain optimistic they’ll join once the project gets going. Wall’s point is that the authority needs to be ready if those investors arrive and want to fund the Los Angeles-to-San Diego segment.

Incidentally, 30 percent of the money budgeted for the San Diego leg in 2010-11 went to public outreach. Once again, Wall said there was a simple reason for it.

“There are 38 million people in the State of California who need to be informed about what high-speed rail is, the project status, where the alignments and stations will be located, and the impacts to communities across the state,” Wall said in an email. “In particular, because Californians voted to support Prop 1A it is incumbent upon our Authority to inform the residents of this state how this project will affect their communities and how the dollars they allocated will be spent.”

The San Diego segment, Wall said, just happened to be at the point in the process where the authority needed to solicit public comment for some planning documents.

This year, spending for the San Diego segment is budgeted to go way down, to $475,000, with 27 percent going to public outreach.

Is this a good use of money? You decide.

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

BSB

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #10 on: December 14, 2011, 06:14:06 PM »
I set my volume to a certain level and some advertising company, in order to push fattening food, or car insurance, over rides it, in my own home no less. Advertise all you want but don't turn up the volume on MY TV in MY house.

A mans home is his castle. You late to the party Republicans don't seem to understand that. It is the governments job to help insure, to the best of their ability, that my home stays my castle. What isn't the governments business is whether or not my wife, or girlfriend, or sister, has an abortion. You RINOs have it all back asswards.


BSB

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #11 on: December 14, 2011, 06:27:39 PM »
The airwaves do not belong to the damned exercise machine and phony real estate wheeler dealer industry, they belong to the people of the USA, and should offer something to the people in return for being allowed to use the airwaves. They can rent cable channels, they can advertise on YouTube.

If every highway were so polluted with billboard so that you could not see anything but ads, I suppose you would tell me to take a plane or something.

I am all for getting the volume down on commercials as well.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

BT

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #12 on: December 14, 2011, 08:56:55 PM »
I don't care if yours have an abortion. Just don't ask me to pay for it.

BSB

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2011, 11:37:28 PM »
That might be a reasonable request. It might not be also. But I don't have any relatives, that I know of, who couldn't afford to do it on their own. At the moment anyway.


BSB

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Pet Peeve
« Reply #14 on: December 15, 2011, 12:51:11 AM »
I don't care if yours have an abortion. Just don't ask me to pay for it.

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The fact is that if a woman has a child it will cost you as a taxpayer more for eighteen years or so than if you paid for that abortion.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."