California bans obnoxiously loud ads on streaming services starting July 1
Starting July 1, California law makes excessively loud advertisements on streaming platforms illegal. The Motion Picture Association and Streaming Innovation Alliance opposed the law, citing technical challenges, while FCC data shows increasing consumer complaints.
A new California law set to take effect on July 1, 2026, will prohibit streaming services from displaying advertisements that are significantly louder than the surrounding content. The regulation aims to curb the common annoyance of ads that abruptly blast at higher volume than the program being watched.
The Motion Picture Association, whose members include Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime Video, and Paramount, along with the Streaming Innovation Alliance (representing Netflix, Disney, Peacock, and Pluto TV), opposed the bill. The groups argued that many streaming providers already try to manage ad loudness, but server-side ad insertion poses technical challenges. Advertisements may come from different sources using various encoding pipelines, leading to inconsistent volume levels. Additionally, streaming services must contend with a wide range of output devices—from TVs to tablets to smartphones—making uniform loudness control difficult.
According to a report from trade publication TV Tech, streaming providers will need to incorporate both file-based and real-time loudness processing into their server-side ad insertion workflows, similar to the controls already used for primary programming.
The difficulty of managing ad loudness is underscored by ongoing viewer dissatisfaction. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported receiving at least 1,700 complaints about excessively loud ads in 2024, up from about 825 in 2023 and approximately 750 in 2022. These figures reflect a growing trend of frustration even in traditional broadcast, cable, and satellite TV.
