Have you noticed nearly every advert you hear on the radio is loud?

You have something that I believe is music (a very poor imitation of it to be sure) playing in the background at frantic speed comprising crashing drums, cymbals, guitars, etc. and loud. Above this mess is a voice shouting so as to be heard over it, with a message that is almost impossible to decipher, and frantically trying to get as many words out in the time slot.

Even hard news is accompanied by this awful racket recorded and played loud.

In the USA there are limits as to how loud an advert should be. It cannot be louder than any of the loudest part of a programme – this applies to television and radio.

The local radio stations will tell you if you complain “the commercials are no louder than any of the other programming broadcast — they just sound louder.”

I single out local radio because the local television station is all over the place with the volume of its commercials. Some are so soft compared to the programme preceding it and some are loud. Some are the same. There is absolutely no consistency.

I’m sure all the advertisers are given the recordings from their marketing company they employ to sign off on.

The music played on the radio is all played at the same level. There is no mix of audio levels. Unlike when you play music from a disk at home. The original recording has loud and soft parts. Nuance, like in the television programmes, is used to build the dramatic effect.

Advertisers don’t want nuance. They want to grab your attention. To do that, the audio track is electronically processed to make every part of it as loud as possible.

Brian Dooley, Editor-At-Large for CNET.com, is quoted as saying, “Nothing is allowed to be subtle. Everything is loud – the voices, the music and the sound effects.”

However, why any advertiser would want a jarring loud backing behind a voice shouting and rushing his words together so it is incomprehensible is beyond my rationale.

The older we get, so our hearing deteriorates, and just playing it louder with a jarring backing racket doesn’t help one bit.

I ask each one of you. Do you like to be shouted at?

Of course you don’t.

So our local advertising agencies, and the in house ones at the radio stations, kindly remember that. Loudness may get our attention for one second but the essential message you want us to hear is lost.

Not only lost to me but makes me angry. And boy when I’m angry my voice gets very LOUD!!!