If you’ve ever been halfway through a quiet Netflix night and suddenly blasted off the couch by an ad that sounds like it was mixed in a jet engine, you’re about to get some peace. California just passed a law banning loud commercials on streaming platforms — meaning those jarring audio spikes on Hulu, Prime Video, and every other ad-supported service will finally have to calm down.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill Monday, saying, “We heard Californians loud and clear,” which is almost too perfect a line for this situation. The new law goes into effect on July 1, 2026, and it forces streamers to keep ad volumes at the same level as the shows they interrupt. In other words: no more whisper-quiet dialogue followed by a screaming SUV commercial.
The rule might sound obvious — TV already plays by it. Back in 2010, Congress passed something called the CALM Act, short for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, which kept traditional broadcasters from cranking up the volume during commercial breaks. But streaming wasn’t covered under that old rule, and the loophole turned into a nightly annoyance for millions of people who’ve quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) complained about it for years.
The bill, written by State Senator Tom Umberg, started with a real story — and a tired dad. His legislative director, Zach Keller, kept finding his newborn daughter jolted awake by loud streaming ads. “This bill was inspired by baby Samantha,” Umberg said, calling it a small but meaningful fix for “every exhausted parent who’s finally gotten a baby to sleep, only to have a blaring streaming ad undo all that hard work.”
It’s a simple idea that hits a nerve: modern streaming has become TV with all the same irritations — just paid for differently. You sit down to unwind, and suddenly your speakers explode because an ad server doesn’t understand decibels. Now, at least in California, that’s about to be illegal.
Given the state’s outsized influence in entertainment, it’s not hard to imagine this rule spreading nationwide. Once California enforces it, platforms won’t bother engineering different audio mixes for every region — they’ll just level all ads by default.
So yes, baby Samantha might’ve just changed the sound of streaming. And somewhere out there, a million half-asleep viewers are silently thanking her.
Source: Techcrunch