Weird how this supposed lack of normalization never seems to result in overly quiet commercials...
Movie sound-engineers seem to have started doing the same.
I really don't understand why annoying ads have't become extinct, in accordance with the Darwin principle.
[Edit] And advertisers hire loud, shouty actors to present their ads; it's almost as if they were challenging us to change channel or stick in a DVD.
Congress mandated a very specific method for controlling loudness by incorporating an ATSC standards document. As long as broadcasters stick to the standard what is the FCC to do? See https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-commercials, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-111publ311/pdf/PLAW..., and https://www.atsc.org/atsc-documents/a85-techniques-for-estab...
The problem is less worse now than before circa 2011. Although most people have switched to streaming so they wouldn't realize.
Unfortunately it's because of the Darwin principle. While I hate them to death annoying stuff is more memorable than pleasant stuff - you can sit on a beach all day and get bitten by a mosquito at one point, you're definitely going to remember the mosquito more than hours of pleasant relaxation. Annoying loud crap gets our attention, I think, in part, because things that are annoying and loud are dangerous (both in the modern and historically) so we're trained to pay more attention to them. I wish it wasn't true but Advertising gains effectiveness from obnoxiousness - like if a marketing company could make your house smell like rotten fish every time they were blasting information about their insurance you'd sure as hell remember their name.