California lawmakers are determined to turn the volume down just a notch. On October 6, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 476 into law, which will require streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and YouTube to cap the volume on their commercial breaks. Beginning July 2026, any advertisements must remain no louder than the show or movie they accompany. This means that the days of jolting awake from an unnervingly high-decibel fast food ad are drawing to a closeâat least in the Golden State.
âThis bill was inspired by [my] baby Samantha and every exhausted parent whoâs finally gotten a baby to sleep, only to have a blaring streaming ad undo all that hard work,â Sen. Thomas Umberg (D-Santa Ana) said in an accompanying statement. âSB 576 brings some much-needed peace and quiet to California households by making sure streaming ads arenât louder than the shows we actually want to watch.â
The state legislation builds on federal standards initially codified in the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. Enacted in 2010, the CALM Act placed limits on ad volume for TV broadcasters, but stopped short of extending the same oversight to streaming platforms. This wasnât necessarily a glaring omission,since many streamers did not run ads at the time/ However, streaming companiesâ ensuing rollout of various subscription tiers over the past 15 years has led to commercial break creep across most apps. Today, streaming ads are nearly as ubiquitous as those on cable televisionâand often louder than the programming itself.
âBy signing SB 576, California is dialing down this inconvenience across streaming platforms, which had previously not been subject to commercial volume regulations,â Gov. Newsom added.
Given Californiaâs dominance across the entertainment landscape in the United States, the new law may put pressure on federal lawmakers to revise the CALM Act to include streaming companies. Until then, assuredly quieter commercials will be restricted to streaming in one state.
