ROARING MAD AT ‘LION’
Subway ad blare
Does this maddening chorus really need to be part of our circle of life?
That’s what straphangers were asking themselves last week after being jolted by ear-splitting “Lion King” ads that turned subway platforms into the cement Serengeti.
Starting Monday, the recorded messages blared the famous Zulu lead-in to “Circle of Life,” before advising straphangers that the long-running musical is back on Broadway.
“I feel pretty annoyed,” Mark Hoopes, 36, a landscape architect, said after he heard the ad while waiting for a downtown 6 train at 77th Street.
The spot registered 99.1 decibels on a sound pressure level meter, louder than a motorcycle engine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The feds require that employers take protective measures if workplace noise exceeds 85 decibels.
Upper East Sider Stephen Snowder, 37, was also disturbed by the segment as he waited for a ride to work.
“People were visibly alarmed,” he told The Post. “I just couldn’t believe the MTA would subject us to something like this. We are already constantly assaulted by an unending barrage of PSAs in subway stations.”
He griped, “It’s clear that no one who is in charge of what gets broadcast in subway stations actually takes the subway.”
Commuters also blasted the MTA on social media.
“New ad for Lion King on Broadway is so aggressively loud it scared multiple people on my subway platform,” one wrote, adding skull emojis.
“Day 2 of being tortured by The Lion King at EVERY single subway station in NYC,” another wrote.
A Disney rep told The Post the ads were scheduled to stop running Friday, Sept. 17.
In response to a straphanger who tweeted about the spot, New York City Transit responded that “this is one of our advertising announcements in conjunction with the reopening of Broadway. We hope you enjoyed the sounds.”
MTA spokesman Tim Minton admitted in a statement, “We got a bit exuberant in welcoming New Yorkers back to Broadway after its 18month shutdown. But Hakuna Matata — no worries — we turned the volume down after a small number of the 11 million riders who heard that call asked for a quieter commute.”