Back in 1983, I read an article that stated that Barbara Streisand called the TV network and told them to turn the volume down during the commercial breaks, during her film Yentl.
The article said that they did.
I don't know if it is true or not, but I did read the article.

Another wild card is the speaker system.
I recently bought a BOSE system for our master TV.
I plugged it up and we set it comfortable for watching a tv series.
It was fine until a commercial came on.
The additional lows and mids made it sound like the volume jumped by about 30%. Did the same thing to any music playing during the show.


I listened to podcasts at night through buds. Some of them are either terrible at mastering or they purposely bump the volume to the point of being uncomfortable at commercials.