Is it just me or is the audio on some broadcast TV shows (Survivor, Dancing with the Stars for example) just awful? My main complaint is often the music bed is way too loud and makes dialog hard to understand. (It is not that I am hard of hearing, my SO also complains about this.) I have also noticed that the audio is occasionally distorted. Don't they know about limiters? This is not just the live shows either. Just an observation.

Regards,
Jerry

I would guess that it's yet more compression madness. Everybody wants their stuff to be louder than the other guy. CDs are compressed to death these days.

Here's cached version of an article on the subject. (The source, prorec, has been down lately.)

-JF

It can really jar you. One of our stations in the Toronto area - CTV - is especially bad for it. Was watching one night about 6 months ago, I think it was CSI, and had the program set to a comfortable listening level, and when the commercial break came on it was a pain-inducing levels. Hauled out my sound pressure meter and with the program at an average level of 70db or so, the local breaks were hitting 92db!!