Brad McConahay

Is it just me, or have the routine sound effects in commercials become so loud as to be annoyingly overbearing. You know, like footsteps in gravel or on concrete, drinking, eating, phones/pagers, keyboard and mouse clicks…

I know that commercial audio tracks are usually highly compressed so as to sound apparently louder while remaining at the same volume level as typical TV programming. But I also think that sound effects are often so accute in commercials that they don’t sound realistic at all.

I don’t mind that there are people who get paid to create fake sounds for every actual sound you hear on TV and in movies, just turn the shit down a little. Less is more.

Or maybe I just watch too much TV.

The local cable weather radar channel (ch. 22) started out as a non-commercial continuous feed of the old-school density-based radar from the Airport, and NOAA weather radio audio. You could turn to channel 22 at any time and have instant radar and current weather audio. Then, about 10 years ago, WCPO Channel 9 took it over.

At first, this seemed like a good idea. Doppler radar and professional news voices. The sad reality now is that 60% of the time you look, it’s a commercial. And another 20% of the time, it’s weather graphics and information besides radar, or a “weather update” that’s often many hours stale. The same is true of the audio loop.

Honestly, as bad as the old airport radar was, I’d rather have it available 24/7. Since you can get local radar on the Weather Channel on the 8’s (and everything else besides), channel 22 has become almost useless. The low point was a recent Sunday when clouds were threatening, and cable channel 22 was running an infomercial. Dicks.

This isn’t the first thing WCPO has ruined by getting their hands on it.