Television commercials can no longer be louder than the shows they interrupt.

Sick of your kids turning off the tv only to ask for new toys? Well, that will still happen but now at least the FCC banned commercials — the ones toy and cereal companies create to zap their marketing messages directly to your kids’ brain — from being louder in volume than the shows they interrupt.

We all know sometimes we have to raise our voices to get our kids’ attention and it seems markeing companies decided – after spending gazillions creating messages just for our offspring – that they too had those rights. No-Sir-Re, said the FCC. Their act, which is called CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) says those messages must be the same volume.

Problem is: guess who’s in charge of regulating this? We are and when we say ‘we’ we mean ‘you’ and all the other moms out there. The worst part is not that we must add this to our list of responsibilities, but it’s one we must accomplish while our kids are watching television, which we all know is the best time to ignore them. You know, to get our stuff done!

Until we figure a way out, file your complaint here and don’t forget to include:

• Whether you watched the commercial on cable, satelite or broadcast television;
• The advertiser or product being promoted;
• The date and time you saw the commercial;
• The name of the TV program it interrupted;
• the TV station on which it aired
• The channel number or network, such as CNN or HBO.