As to why they don't want to. I assume the advertisers believe it makes their ads more effective, and the TV stations go along with this.

I presume the volume change for adverts is partially because people leave the room when the adverts are on or start talking to people.…

Is no one doing real market research so advertisers know they're wasting their money? Or is there still a sizeable rump of passive telly imbibers who will take whatever they are given?

Perhaps the problem is that it is marketers doing market research. I sometimes wonder if they've become a…

Is no one doing real market research so advertisers know they're wasting their money? Or is there still a sizeable rump of passive telly imbibers who will…

why TV station don't lower the master volume when the ads come on

I thought the answer to this was very clear. They don't want to. I assume that they'd implement something like replay gain or lowering the volume on the recording, rather than changing the master volume.
As to…

Audio compression is not hateful per se The question is how it's used.

I come back to find all sorts of erudition sparked by an innocent comment of mine. Still begs the question of why TV station don't lower the master volume when the ads come on. It doesn't seem…

It seems actually the solution for TV3 is much easier than I'd previously thought. The replay gain solution used by MP3 players like iTunes is rather easy. It manages to assess perceived loudness, and attenuate accordingly.

Agreed. ReplayGain is really useful. Although iTunes uses its own method (called SoundCheck?), which…

Also, I have no particular evidence for this, but I wonder whether Comskip is…

This is interesting, and disingenuous by TV3

Absolutely. Whoever wrote TV3's explanation — TV3 spokeman Roger Beaumont may be just forwarding what he's been told to say — is either lying or so uninformed as to be incompetent to comment on the issue.

I'm not sure that the gif shows…

Mercifully, I'm no longer a consumer of ads for the most part (thanks GB-PVR).

And mercifully, I'm no longer a consumer of ads for the most part (thanks cable internet and pop-up blockers). ^_^

Also, on the so-called Loudness War in music. Check out the animated gif at the top of the page, showing the same Beatles song re-mastered 4 times in 20 years.

I'm not sure that the gif shows audio compression, given that in the early examples even the peaks are far…

The technical term for squishing low (and high) volume bits closer to the average so that there's a constant volume level is compression, if you want to google up this hateful phenomenon.

Audio compression is not hateful per se. The question is how it's used.

I was slumming it

ah well. that's swell,
orwell that ends well...
insofar as tenets go
– it's "a slum dank case"
(George that is,
Tenet not Orwell)

speaking of boom boom and bust
wasn't Cleopatra bitten by an ASB?

yrs Con Vole-Looted

The same issue applies to music. If you make a mix of songs from different CDs, some will sound louder than others. Programs like iTunes have a feature to equalize this, but generally over the past 20 years bands have all been trying to sound louder.

The technical term for…

I, too thought Goldstein might be an Orwellian reference...

John, Ian, no. I was slumming it. It seemed apt.

The jackhammer outside isn't louder than me banging a nail in with a hammer it just hits the peaks more frequently

That's an OK analogy, but it's rather more like changing the sound of the jackhammer…

does anyone else find the ASB ads a touch anti-semitic?

ergo ASB must be an acronym for Anti-Semitic Bastards !! : )

or was Mr Slack intimating that Emmanuel Goldstein
would Govern the Reserve Bank after all the world is ripe for
Oligarchical Collectivism. Bollard best get out of the…

I feel sorry for Goldstein because he's stuck wearing the same style of spectacles. Those giant round '90s-style specs are so out-of-date now, but I'm sure it would cause too much of a ruckus for ASB's customers for them to update them.

Were they ever meant to be considered stylish?…

does anyone else find the ASB ads a touch anti-semitic?

It's always rubbed me up the wrong way, but since he's always portrayed as a lovable innocent abroad, it's hard to get too upset about it. It's his WASPy boss who's the fiendish financier.

I asked people on a local…

My family is nominally…

Technically adverts on TV are not louder it is just that they more frequently hit the "peaks"

So

My boss isn't shouting at me he is just hitting the peaks more frequently

or

The jackhammer outside isn't louder than me banging a nail in with a hammer it just hits…

So on a graph the advert's sound would be flat-lining along the top of the permissible volume while a normal program…

I have been told that the Jewish community (and by community I imagine it is some representing body) is consulted on each ad before they screen, and the ad will not go ahead if they do not approve of it.

Are you serious, or are you pulling our leg? Why…

The guy who makes the TV commercials louder than the programmes

LOL

Narrow dynamic range – my arse!

As an aside – does anyone else find the ASB ads a touch anti-semitic? certainly they'd never play in the US

I have been told that the Jewish community (and by community I imagine it is some representing body) is consulted on each ad before they screen, and the ad…

Front office, back line, backroom, front of house, back to front, Y-fronts ...

Minister of Maori Affairs Michael Lhaws

Isn't he about to be appointed head of the Geographical Board?

The guy who makes the TV commercials louder than the programmes

TV people have the greatest justification for this: they don't raise the volume during the ads, it's the advertisers who send them in a compressed audio format that makes them louder when they are played.

So turn down the…

Attorney General: Joe Karam

Chief Judge of Waitangi Tribunal: Leighton Smith

Communications Minister: David Farrar

Army Chief of Staff: Bishop Tamaki

As for the anti-semite thing, not sure. The thought had also occurred to me.

Corrections Minister: Garth McVicar

Head of Alcohol Advisory Council: Jessie Ryder

Supermayor: Charlotte Dawson

Minister for Arts: Colin Meads

Head of SIS: Bridgit Saunders