Hearing Loss?
 

I can understand just about every word of every commercial that's on TV -

So why am I having such a hard time understanding the people during the program?

I can think of 2 reasons.

First, the commercials always seem to be louder. :mad:

Second, I have a hard time hearing dialogue in tv shows if there's music or other background noise, like a crowd, also in the tv show. I always chalked this up to my husband's desire to have a fancy-schmancy theater setup. He has 6 speakers for "surround sound", and the dialogue comes out of the center channel speaker, which sits right under the tv. Music and background noise (like typing, printers, and ringing phones in an office scene on tv) comes out of the speakers that are back towards the couch, so that's what I hear most of. Drives me nuts and he finds himself alone often in the evenings because of it.

Maybe you have some degree of hearing loss.

I do know that the commercials are much louder than the regular programming. I will be watching a program and the sound level is comfortable. Then a commercial comes on and it is like the sound level shoots way up. Trying to get our attention, I guess, so they hype up the ads. They don't get my attention because I mute the sound as soon as the ads come on.

I hear - and understand the words - of the commercials - very well. (Although some of the commercials make my DH look at each other and shrug our shoulders)

If it's an older program, it could also be the poor quality of the audio track.

The problem I have is some people on shows seem to talk fast and run the words together. Anyone else have that problem?

Yes, Texas, my kids and grandkids all run their words together. And Bear we have the worst time hearing TV's. A lot of people on tv talk good the first of the sentence, then they whisper the important part. We look at each other and say "What did they say"? Gotta go back and re-run it. And I have hearing aids over on the shelf.ha,ha.

I find that with the oldies radio station in my new truck is like that. I'm with Neesie , I think it is the lower quality of the music 40 or so years ago. I have a top notch radio, know it can't be that.
I think the loud commercials is because they know people are getting something to eat or drink or going to the restroom. They want to make sure they can be heard. I don't buy from seeing something on TV or hearing it on the radio.

yup it is surround sound. we had it and my husband can hear more out of tv with out it. he was
hearing more of the back ground than the words