Since I'm not sure that folks are really understanding what I'm driving at with Global's audio versus its US counterpart, I recorded this past week's episode of The Office twice - once on Global and once on NBC. I selected a short passage that demonstrates the issue.

NBC MP3

Global MP3

First, a side-by-side comparison waveform of the exact same section. NBC's original audio is on the top (downmixed to mono), and Global's on the bottom.



Doesn't look especially the same. Note all the level ramping during what were originally silent passages. This is all background noise being elevated out of the backgound.

Here's a close-up to show it better:



I have calculated that the background noise is being increased by 18db over NBC's reference level - that means soft background noises are 8 times louder than they should be. That turns a mild amount of environment hum into starship-grade engine noise.

And it's not just silent areas that this affects. Take a look at this comparison of what was an outgoing telephone call ringing tone:



Note how the first sound of someone rustling the handset is louder than it should be, but then the following ring tone is ramped quieter than it should be.

Global has some little box stuck in their audio chain, originally sold as a way to help normalize soft programs versus loud commercials, and someone's configured it so poorly that it's trying to normalize/compress every 5 seconds of audio and being allowed to go to extremes to do so. And it's not just Global that's doing this. I've noticed that CityTV's audio, which was a previous second for lack-of-quality annoyances, has this year started using the same misguided audio compression settings as Global.

Oh no, it's spreading!