California bans loud ads on streaming platforms

A new California law aims to prevent commercial ads from boosting the volume of streaming services.

The law, which says ads can’t be louder than the primary video content being watched, builds on a federal law that sets the volume of ads on TV and cable channels to include streaming platforms.

Opponents, including the influential entertainment industry, had argued that it would be difficult to implement because streaming services do not have the same control over advertising volume as broadcasters.

California is home to the headquarters of streaming platforms Netflix and Hulu, and Amazon produces many of its Prime Video shows and movies there.

In 2010, Congress passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act to reduce the volume of television broadcasts and radio stations.

The law signed Monday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom requires streaming services to also comply with the Obama-era federal law.

The services were in their infancy when the CALM Act was passed, but have since become the primary viewing option for many American households.

“We’ve heard Californians loud and clear, and what’s clear is that they don’t want commercials at a louder volume than they previously listened to a program at,” Newsom said as he signed the bill.

Existing federal law requires the federal regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to develop regulations requiring that advertisements have the same average volume as the programs they accompany, according to the bill.

In February, the FCC said it had received thousands of complaints about loud ads in recent years, many of which involved streaming services.

This law, which takes effect July 1, 2026, prohibits a video streaming service aimed at consumers in the state from transmitting the audio of commercial advertisements louder than the video content people are watching.

“This bill was inspired by baby Samantha and every exhausted parent who finally got their baby to sleep, only to see a blaring streaming commercial undo all that hard work,” said State Sen. Thomas Umberg, who introduced the bill.

Samantha is the daughter of Umberg’s legislative director, Zach Keller, who told her about a loud commercial waking his little daughter while he was watching a streaming show.

However, the Motion Picture Association and the Streaming Innovation Alliance, which represent streaming services such as Disney and Netflix, initially opposed the bill.

They said they don’t have the ability to control volume settings on the devices on which their content is offered, unlike broadcast and cable TV providers.

Streaming ads come from several different sources and cannot necessarily or practically be controlled, MPA Vice President of State Government Affairs Melissa Patack said in June.

The bill was later amended with a legal provision that would prohibit individuals or private parties from suing streaming services for violating the law.

As a result, both groups remained neutral on the amended bill, according to the Los Angeles Times.