> and loud commercials have nothing to do with ethics
A quick google search makes it clear that people don't want to hear loud commercials and want legislation in place to prevent them (actually they're wondering why the fuck existing legislation to prevent exactly those ads is being circumvented). It's not just annoying, it's hijacking their hardware to assault their senses. It makes watching TV or listening to radio at night a nightmare if anyone is sleeping in the house. It's ambiguously unethical and the practice only persists because consumers aren't able to out-lobby advertising interests to pass the laws needed to prevent it in many states. And in your mind this is how it should be because 'that's what the sponsor is paying for'..?
Yes. Free, broadcast radio, which is what I'm speaking about, comes to you because advertisers pay them to hijack your hardware and feed you a message you don't want to hear. That's literally how it works, and it should be unsurprising that you cannot outlobby them. (The great caper, of course, is that everybody pays for cable but those television channels still have advertising on them.) It's weird that people like capitalism, but then want capitalism on strictly their terms: in the modern age, thanks to market pressure, radio with few exceptions exists to allow Bob's Turnpike Honda to tell you about their President's Day sale. The rest is designed to develop an audience for that function. That's just the nature of the game now.
Solution: Pay for content you like so that more broadcasters enable those options. No ads. Done. This applies to pretty much every broadcast medium including the Web. Sirius XM, Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube Red... toss a few bucks at Apple Music and get into podcasts. This is a fixable problem without worrying about how loud the SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY spot is on your local radio station, and it's far more fixable now than it was even three years ago.
Notice I said I formerly worked in broadcast radio. Inventory is decreasing in terrestrial. Satellite and alternatives are winning. That problem is only going to become worse in terrestrial radio. It's weird, though, because radio also serves a vital role with EAS, local news, and other functions. I remember when Clear Channel started collapsing all the locals and Sirius and XM launched, most of my peers said the end was nigh. I don't know how it'd "end," but it's slowly worsening.
And no, calling anything I just said "unethical" is a misunderstanding of the word ethical.
No that is not 'literally how it works.' It works differently in a lot of other places, and I suggest you consider another perspective besides your own.
A quick google search makes it clear that people don't want to hear loud commercials and want legislation in place to prevent them (actually they're wondering why the fuck existing legislation to prevent exactly those ads is being circumvented). It's not just annoying, it's hijacking their hardware to assault their senses. It makes watching TV or listening to radio at night a nightmare if anyone is sleeping in the house. It's ambiguously unethical and the practice only persists because consumers aren't able to out-lobby advertising interests to pass the laws needed to prevent it in many states. And in your mind this is how it should be because 'that's what the sponsor is paying for'..?