Netflix, Disney+ and the other major streamers will have to dial down the volume on their commercials in California after Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law banning advertisements that are louder than the main video content being watched.
The move, which builds on Congress’ Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act passed in 2010, would require streamers to comply with the volume limits starting July 1, 2026.
“We heard Californians loud and clear, and what’s clear is that they don’t want commercials at a volume any louder than the level at which they were previously enjoying a program,” Newsom said in a statement.
The legislation comes after the Federal Communications Commission has received thousands of complaints in the past several years about loud commercials on broadcast, cable, and satellite television. In February, the FCC said the number took a “troubling jump last year, which warrants a second look.”
Senator Thomas Umberg, who is the author behind the legislation, said it was inspired by his legislative director, Zach Keller, who complained that loud streaming commercials were waking up his infant daughter, Samantha.
“SB 576 brings some much-needed peace and quiet to California households by making sure streaming ads aren’t louder than the shows we actually want to watch,” Umberg added.
Umberg’s bill initially faced opposition from The Motion Picture Association and Streaming Innovation Alliance, who represent the major entertainment conglomerates.
“Unlike in the broadcasting cable network environment, where advertisers sell their ads directly to the networks, streaming ads come from several different sources and cannot necessarily or practically be controlled by streaming platforms,” MPA vice president of state government affairs, Melissa Patack said in testimony last year. “The technology that encodes and inserts ads from advertisers and third party intermediaries into programming occurs in real time.”
At the time, Patack noted that the Audio Engineering Society and the Interactive Advertising Bureau were already working address loudness issues and develop best practices to match the loudness of ads with programming. She added that many streaming services publish audio specifications to advertisers, ad networks and ad exchanges and request source coding from advertisers so that they can make “reasonable efforts to normalize ad loudness.”
The opposition was later dropped after Umberg amended the bill to add legal provisions that would protect streamers from lawsuits from private entities and leave enforcement to the state attorney general’s office.
Representatives for the MPA, SIA, Paramount and Prime Video declined to comment. Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Peacock and Apple TV+ did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
