Well, part of the issue is the audio is part of what they want you to hear because it's considered more effective than just text moving. Animated ads were tried, and I'm going to assume that they weren't considered as effective given the fact that we have video ads instead of Gifv ads.
My outsider-looking-in perspective leads me to believe there must be a decent amount of money in the auto-play video ads else the news sites wouldn't bother. Certainly they know they're annoying and frustrating, but if they pay, then I guess they have little reason to care. There's no effective blocking solution at the moment, and people are still coming for the news almost a year into this practice, so it obviously isn't hurting the numbers enough to make an impact.
I do feel that sometimes the anti-advertising commentaries need a more directed focus, since at the core a lot of people want content for free without the annoyance of the ads. I certainly do, but I also respect that this content creation and the providing of the content costs money - if a site has an anti-ad blocker and they ask me to turn it off to proceed, I respect their wishes by just not continuing. I have yet to come to an article that I felt was worth it, and if the provider's position is "ads or nothing", then I'll respect that. I just ask that they respect my wishes (Do not track, ad blocking, etc). I'm well aware that sites and advertisers don't do this, but I do feel it's important to show the respect. My not going to the site is more than likely logged as a non-click-through, and I hope this makes the intended impact of showing them my preferences.