California bans loud commercials on streaming platforms

California has passed a law to ban loud commercials on streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu.

This is great news for people who don't want to wake the neighborhood up when a streaming show suddenly turns into an aggressively loud ad for migraine medication.

Governor Gavin Newsom just signed the law and the ban goes into effect on July 1, 2026. On that date, streaming services won't be allowed to “transmit the audio of commercial advertisements louder than the video content the advertisements accompany."

Newsom said that California is "dialing down this inconvenience across streaming platforms, which had previously not been subject to commercial volume regulations passed by Congress in 2010.” He's referring to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, which barred the audio of TV commercials from being broadcast louder than the TV program being aired. California's new law makes streaming ...