Focussing on the things that matter, Ctd

Utterly astounded that Curran has gone so far as to incorporate this into policy. She steadfastly chooses not to understand the actual issues here but, remarkably, claims the solutions are simple.
I tried to engage with her on Twitter on this issue. She asked me to send her my details which I took as an invitation to have an intelligent, reasoned discussion on why ads sound louder. I sent her my contact details and heard nothing further from her. I tweeted to her that the broadcaster I work for ingests everything at -10dB. That’s commercials, programme material, EVERYTHING. Nothing gets ‘turned up’. Nothing is louder. The transmission chain has equipment in it which lowers and smoothes out any major spikes in audio. She simply does not want to understand what audio compression is and how it affects commercials because she just ignores anything that challenges her belief that broadcasters deliberately make commercials seem louder. Because that would ruin her idiotic “I’m saving New Zealanders from having to use their remote control, how great am I?” policy.
She claims to have approached several broadcasters to discuss the subject and says she was stonewalled. I very much doubt that. Broadcasters must receive hundreds of complaints each week from old deaf people who crank the hell out of the volume to hear Coronation Street and when the ads come on and have a very busy soundscape, the oldies are probably so surprised that their dentures fall out. There’s no reasoning with those sort of people. There’s no point in trying to explain audio compression. You just say “Yes, tut tut” and move on. That sort of complaint is likely to be so common at broadcasters that the default response is to ignore the complainers unless there’s reason to believe that they will pay attention to – and accept - an explanation as to why commercials sound loud. Clare Curran does not strike me as someone who is willing to listen to the broadcasters as she has demonstrated so far that she is deliberately close minded on this. I suspect that her approach to broadcasters was to say “Your commercials are SO loud! Tell me why they’re SO LOUD! I want to know!” which will get an obvious response. She’d strike success if she were to drop her stance of “broadcasters and advertisers are evil and I’m convinvced we need to regulate them” if she were to approach broadcasters respectfully and with an open mind and say “Could you tell me about the challenges of handling peak audio in television commercials. I’d appreciate it if you could explain to me the systems and policies you have in place.”

Fortunately Labour won’t get elected anyway and hopefully Clare Curran will have moved on to a job that suits her level of competence before Labour next gets elected. Nonetheless it pisses me off that Labour and especially Curran demonstrate such a profound ignorance of the subject and are not only formulating policy but also threatening to regulate an aspect of industry based on that ignorance.

“Labour believes broadcasting networks have been slow to adapt and revise their Technical Delivery Requirements to reflect digital technology. ”

How utterly utterly wrong. Broadcasters have invested not only a lot of time and effort but also millions upon millions of dollars on the transition from the analogue of old to the digital technology of the present. And Clare Curran thinks they’re slow to adapt and revise ther technical delivery requirements? Really? They’ve invested as much as they have and she thinks broadcasters haven’t revised something as fundamental as technical delivery requirements?! Has she even read any such documentation from the various broadcasters? Would she even understand it?