No more need to ‘zap’ loud adverts

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ANNOYING loud adverts on TV are set to be a thing of the past as the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel has set a noise limit for programmes and ads.

The measures will apply across the channels and mean that the sound on advert breaks should not be any different from that of the programmes and will be the same across the different channels.

CSA president Michel Boyon said that the problem was not really the different sound levels but the sound density which made adverts sound louder – and sound compression techniques used on the TNT channels in particular highlighted this effect.

The changes – which are a first in Europe – are due to come into effect from December 19.