[brookst]

We process visual and audio data differently. No website or or magazine is going to trick me into thinking someone’s at the door by playing a dry doorbell sample over reverb for the rest of the ad.

Radio (and TV) are uniquely obnoxious in their use of instinctive audio cues to demand attention by making us go on alert.

[imtyler]

But that's not a product of the medium, to be fair.

[brewdad]

How is not? There is a commercial I've been seeing a lot during sporting events. I think it's some sort of insurance but I have no idea. All I know is multiple times a day the ad plays the default iPhone text message alert and it pisses me off.

That sort of shit needs to shut down. I think only sirens played on radio ads might be worse.

[imtyler]

The quote is right there:

"Radio (and TV) are uniquely obnoxious"

Ads are obnoxious. That's not unique to radio.

[brookst]

I thought the claim was that all ads are obnoxious, so singling out radio for ad-killing efforts is, IDK, morally wrong.

My point was that radio ads are uniquely obnoxious because of a combination of the way we process audio signals and radio stations’ apathy about intentionally irritating ads.

I’ll grant it’s not a moral failing on the part of sound waves. It’s 100% the broadcasters who see short term profit from “more effective” ads, who then have no right to complain when people are irritated enough to develop filters for the ads.