The days of having to turn down your television’s volume during commercial breaks may be coming to an end.

Responding to decades of complaints, the U.S. government is crafting rules that will force broadcasters to show commercials at the same sound level as the program they accompany. The new regulations are contained in a proposed rule issued by the Federal Communications Commission , which acted in response to the passage of the CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act

If the new rule is formally adopted, networks will have until December 15 to comply with the new sound-transmission provisions.

At the time that the House of Representatives approved the CALM Act (by voice vote) in December 2009, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Florida) gave a straightforward explanation for why the regulation was necessary. “You can say, ‘Well, that’s fine. Just turn it off,’” he told the Associated Press. “But it’s constantly an irritant when you have to do it. And we’ve got all the new bowl games coming up.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff