Every now and again the Radio Times has letters from readers expressing their problems with overloud background music to documentaries. Here is a response from a reader describing a possible reason for the problem.
The writer works in the field of Applied Psychology, specialising in speech intelligibility,and was previously a programme maker in both TV and radio. "A great deal of robust scientific evidence indicates that theproblem lies with sound processing in the Freeview service, watched in 19 million UK homes. Viewers can hear this ... by comparing programme sound on Freeview to the sound of the same programme played on BBC iPlayer. There is a solution - or at least a simple step forward the broadcasters could take. Their people working on the sound balance should listen to the results of their work after it has gone through the Freeviewprocess. Better still, they could do it without a script in front of them, which is how people listen at home. I have raised this before with the BBC and would like to think that those responsible would address the issue." Chris Rees.
Letter in Radio Times, issue 27 Aug. to 2 Sept. 2016
