Streaming ads in California set to quiet down under new law

Streaming ads might be getting a lot quieter this week. A California law banning streaming services from showing ads “louder than the video content” that they accompany is set to take effect on Wednesday, July 1. (Existing legislation already imposes similar volume restrictions on broadcast and cable TV commercials.) Ars Technica notes that streaming services have not shared additional details about how they plan to comply with the law. While the volume limitations only apply to California for now, it seems likely that any relevant changes would be deployed more broadly, especially with a similar bill set to take effect in Illinois next year. When the law was passed in 2025, its sponsor, State Senator Thomas Umberg, said it was inspired by “every exhausted parent who’s finally gotten a baby to sleep, only to have a blaring streaming ad undo all that hard work.” Industry groups including the Motion Picture Association of America and the Streaming Innovation Alliance opposed the bill, claiming streamers were already working to address the issue, and noting that they have to deal with a variety of output devices, including TVs, tablets, and phones.