Tired of riding the sound wave between feature programming and obnoxiously loud ads?

So is the FCC.

“Most of us have either experienced this ourselves, or had friends and family who have experienced it,” stated FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “You’re watching your favorite television program, or the news, and all of a sudden, a commercial comes on and it sounds like someone turned up the volume – but no one did.”

Yesterday the Commission unanimously voted to approve new rules implementing the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, preventing commercials from being broadcast at a louder volume than the program material they follow.

“This is an important day for consumer protection,” said FCC Commissioner Michael J. CoppiI. “I cannot tell you how many hundreds of citizens have told me—personally, through e-mails and letters, at public hearings, even across the family dinner table—how obnoxiously intrusive they find loud commercials. So do I.”

Broadcasters will be required to implement best practice standards developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, a nonprofit TV standards-making body, known as ATSC A/85.

The rules will be effective one year from now, giving stations time to reach full compliance.