Verizon FiOS TV → Electronic Musical Tones on some broadcasts?

I have started to notice a very distracting background sound coming from different broadcasts, a series of musical electronic beeps lasting a few seconds. It's happening on studio applause
and crowd noise for football games. When it gets louder, the
tones go off, and it continues repeating when the broadcast
sound goes higher.

What is this? It's driving me nuts.

No idea, are there hearing aids around?

I have been hearing it too sounds like a NOAA radio too me. Happened the other day thought we were getting a severe thunderstorm and it was sunny out and turns out it was the tv's background noise.

No, it's definitely the broadcasts. Multiple TV's, different cable boxes and receivers.

I've been hearing this as well, for about a week now. Very noticeable while watching sports, and it's been so consistent that I feel like I hear it subconciously on other programs now. At first I thought it was somebody being a jerk behind the studio, but it's been too much for that.

Also been hearing this. I think it's an attempt to hypnotize us all.

Aliens? (Or maybe Spielberg trying to talk to aliens?)

I'm on 1.9. If you go to SETTINGS - AUDIO - AUDIO ALERTS and see if that's ON. I turned mine off and don't hear tones anymore. Not sure they're the same tones you're hearing.

I too noticed this about a month ago and have been looking for some kind of answer as to what this could be. Well today I think I finally found the culprit.

»media-sync.tv/howitworks

"Watermarks are overlaid onto a program’s audio in such a way that they are unperceivable to the human ear but can be picked up by microphones and decoded on smartphones and tablets."

What a load of crap. I hear this ringing noise constantly when watching television.

I started noticing this about a month ago. It hasn't gone away and I can barely watch TV anymore. I hear it on multiple channels though, Fox, TNT, TBS, CBS. I never hear it on commercials though, just on a show or game. Nothing changed in my setup, then out of the blue this starts happening. I can hear it on all my TVs, so it doesn't seem to be limited to the box type (I have a new motorola dvr and older HD box).

If that is what is this is, then it's definitely not "unperceivable" as they claim.
I was looking through all the audio settings last night, but I didn't see anything about audio alerts. I will look at it again tonight, but I haven't received the 1.9 update yet.

I tried to find that audio alerts section last night, but it wasn't there. If anyone has any other ideas please post.

I do not think the "Audio Alerts" menu item is available on IMG 1.8. I have 1.9 and it is there. I never set it and it was OFF. I do not hear any added "watermark tones".

Here's an example of the sound, occurs twice here:
»kelvington.com/TEMP/Frin ··· mple.mpg

It's on many networks, different cable providers, according to
a few different forums.

Yea, that's the same thing I am hearing. It's a little hard to hear through the computer speakers, but I picked it up. I'm glad that other people are hearing this as well, but this still doesn't bring us any closer to solving the issue.

This is really bizarre. I'm very interested in seeing why this is happening.

I just got the 1.9 update last week and hadn't really noticed the tones. That is until last night when I was watching The Walking Dead on my DVR. They were there as clear as they were before. BOO!

Nothing to do with Verizon. Various channels have started adding them. Fox has had them a couple of months. Noted several with NBC this week. I get them OTA as well as with FIOS.

Several people have mentioned them being added to help in measuring ads. Not sure of the truth.

Hope you and the others are right that you can turn them off in 1.9 once it gets here.