Help dissecting this distortion effect

[MackTuesday]

The distortion sounds so nice and velvety here. It's the anchor speaking for a couple of seconds on the TV.

http://youtu.be/pDro9pQ2AbI?t=25s

Can someone break down what's going on acoustically? Lowpass ==> rectification?

For those of you with access to the entire video, it's season 6 episode 4 of Mad Men, starting at 17:44 or so. There's more time in the full episode to hear the effect.