Regulation

About ASA
The Advertising Standards Authority is the UKs independent
regulator of advertising across all media. We apply the
Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of
Advertising Practice. Our work includes acting on complaints
and proactively checking the media to take action against
misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.
In this section you can find out how advertising regulation
works, who our key people are and information about our
performance.How we make every ad a responsible ad through
our strategy

The five strands of our strategy

1 Understanding: Well be an authority on advertising and
active on issues that cause societal concern. Well be open to
calls for regulatory change, acting purposefully and in a timely
fashion, while being fair and balanced in our assessment of the
evidence and arguments
2 Support: Well provide support to advertisers to help them
create responsible ads. Well increase, improve and better
target our advice and training so every business has access to
the information and support it needs
3 Impact: Well spend more time on matters that make the
biggest difference. Focussing on our existing remit, well spend
less time tackling ads that cause little detriment to consumers

or on the vulnerable. But, where a complaint indicates that the

rules have been broken, we will always do something
4 Proactive: Well be proactive and work with others. Well use a
wide range of information to identify and tackle problems to
make sure ads are responsible, even if we havent officially
received a complaint.
5 Awareness: Well increase awareness of the ASA and CAP. We
will make sure that the public, civil society and the industry
know who we are and what we can do, so they can engage with
us when they need to, and have confidence in our work. - I
have taken reference from their website.
http://asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Strategy.aspx

what is ofcom?
Ofcom is the communications regulator in the UK.
We regulate the TV and radio sectors, fixed line telecoms,
mobiles, postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless
devices operate.
We make sure that people in the UK get the best from their
communications services and are protected from scams and
sharp practices, while ensuring that competition can thrive.
Ofcom operates under a number of Acts of Parliament,
including in particular the Communications Act 2003. Ofcom
must act within the powers and duties set for it by Parliament
in legislation.
The Communications Act says that Ofcoms principal duty is to
further the interests of citizens and of consumers, where
appropriate by promoting competition. Meeting this duty is at
the heart of everything we do.
Accountable to Parliament, we set and enforce regulatory rules
for the sectors for which we have responsibility. We also have
powers to enforce competition law in those sectors, alongside
the Competition and Markets Authority.

Ofcom is funded by fees from industry for regulating

broadcasting and communications networks, and grant-in-aid
from the Government.
What we do
Our main legal duties are to ensure:
the UK has a wide range of electronic communications
services, including high-speed services such as
broadband;
a wide range of high-quality television and radio
programmes are provided, appealing to a range of tastes
and interests;
television and radio services are provided by a range of
different organisations;
people who watch television and listen to the radio are
protected from harmful or offensive material;
people are protected from being treated unfairly in
television and radio programmes, and from having their
privacy invaded;
a universal postal service is provided in the UK - this
means a six days a week, universally priced delivery and
collection service across the country; and
the radio spectrum (the airwaves used by everyone from
taxi firms and boat owners, to mobile-phone companies
and broadcasters) is used in the most effective way.
What we do not do
We are not responsible for regulating:
disputes between you and your telecoms provider;
premium-rate services, including mobile-phone text
services and ringtones;
the content of television and radio adverts;
complaints about accuracy in BBC programmes;
the BBC TV licence fee;
post offices; or
newspapers and magazines.

Ofcom's main decision making body is the Board, which

provides strategic direction for the organisation. It has a
Non-Executive Chairman, Executive Directors (including

the Chief Executive), and Non-Executive Directors. The

Executive runs the organisation and answers to the Board.
The Ofcom Board meets a least once a month (with the
exception of August). Agendas, summary, notes and
minutes of meetings are published regularly on the Ofcom
website.
Executive Committee (ExCo)
ExCo is Ofcom's senior executive team. It meets each
month (except August) and is responsible for setting
Ofcom's direction and overseeing the management of the
organisation.
Policy Executive (PE)
PE meets weekly (except August) and is responsible for
the development of Ofcom's overall regulatory agenda. As
well as providing a forum for discussion, it also has the
powers to take certain decisions itself.
Operations Board
The Operations Board manages the operations areas
within Ofcom including Central Operations, which deals
with thousands of consumers each week through its
advisory, consumer services and licensing teams. The role
of the Operations Board is to support, guide and challenge
Ofcoms operational performance. It meets fortnightly and
reports directly to ExCo.
Content Board
The Content Board is a committee of the main Board and it
sets and enforces quality and standards for television and
radio.
Committees
The work of both the Ofcom Board and Executive is
informed by the contribution of a number of committees
and advisory bodies, which are required by the
Communications Act. These include the Communications
Consumer Panel, the England, Northern Ireland, Scotland
and Wales Advisory Committees, the Ofcom Spectrum
Advisory Board and the Older Persons and Disabled
Persons Advisory Committee.
Ofcom in the Nations and Regions
Ofcom has a statutory duty to take into account in its
decisions the views and interests of those who live in

different parts of the UK. Our operations in the Nations are

led by a senior Director in Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and
London. An advisory committee in each Nation provides
Ofcom with detailed and expert insights into the particular
challenges faced by citizens and consumers in different
parts of the UK. I have taken reference from the ofcom
website.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/how-ofcom-is-run/

Audience information
Audience measurement panelsAudience measurement measures how many people are in an
audience, usually in web traffic on websites. Sometimes, the
term is used as pertaining to practices which helps the
broadcasters and advertisers to determine who is listening
rather than just how many people are listening.
Face to face
Face-to-face interview is a data collection method when the
interviewer directly communicates with the respondent in
accordance with the prepared questionnaire. This method
enables to acquire factual information, consumer evaluations,
attitudes, preferences and other information coming out during
the conversation with the respondent. Thus, face-to-face
interview method ensures the quality of the obtained data and
increases the response rate.
focus groupsIt is similar to normal interview however the difference is that it
is more like a group discussion, this way you get more peoples
views on a single question and pushes people to think of
different ideas best responses.
questionnaires-

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series

of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering
information from respondents. and or a set of printed or
written questions with a choice of answers, devised for the
purposes of a survey or statistical study.
RatingsIs the percentage of people who watch the show the benefit is
that producers cans how well their show is doing and whether
to continue the show.
programme profilesConnects what audience the show has and what audience the
advert has. for example advising wrinkle cream for a show like
hollyoaks. it wouldn't work because hollyoaks has a lot younger
viewing age so wrinkle cream wouldn't sell well.
Broadcasters Audience research board BARBTelevision viewing figures are often useful in assignments,
dissertations, academic articles and similar documents.
Students are permitted to include in their work the data
featured on this website, but the information should not be
used in any wider publication without a BARB subscription.
The viewing data section of this site offers a number of ways to
access television audience figures. Both historical data and the
latest audience figures are available as weekly and monthly
viewing summaries, based on the Individuals aged 4+ audience
category. There are also top 10 and top 30 weekly programmes
lists, quarterly channel reach reports and various trend graphs.
The TV facts section in Resources contains longer-term annual
trends in television viewing and the television environment.
BARB since 1981 provides a broader overview of key events in
television since BARBs foundation, including annual Top 10
programmes and the changing list of reported channels. If you
require data that are not available in any of the above sections

it will be necessary to subscribe to BARB. Small volumes of

data intended for internal use may be given through an end
user licence limited usage.

Since 1981, we at the Broadcasters Audience Research Board

(BARB) have been delivering the official viewing figures for UK
television audiences. We commission research companies Ipsos
MORI, Kantar Media and RSMB to collect data that represent
the viewing behaviour of the UKs 26 million TV households.
BARB viewing data offer clients, such as broadcasters and
advertisers, a minute by minute breakdown of viewing at
regional and national levels. This information is vital for
assessing how programmes, channels or advertising campaigns
have performed and provides the basis for airtime advertising
trading.
In order to estimate viewing patterns across all TV households,
a carefully selected panel of private homes is recruited. The
Establishment Survey is carried out continuously by Ipsos MORI
in order to track changes in UK household characteristics. From
this we can ascertain the types of households we need on our
panel to make sure it is representative of the whole of the UK.
We then recruit households to be on the panel that suit the
necessary demographics, TV platforms and geography, as well
as other variables. The BARB panel consists of 5100
households, which each represent about 5000 other
households across the UK.
Once a household has been recruited to the BARB panel, Kantar
Media fits every TV set in the home with a meter. Software
meters are also installed on laptop and desktop computers, and
tablets. In order for the meter to know who is watching, each
member of the household over the age of four is assigned a
button on a special remote control. If they enter a room while
the television is on they must press their designated button to
register their presence and press it again when they leave to
show they are no longer watching.
We know what panel members are watching through an audio
matching process. The meters take an audio sample of the
programme, which is then turned into a digital fingerprint and

matched to a reference library of programmes. It takes 15

seconds for the audio to be recognised and therefore matched
but we report viewing on a minute-by-minute basis.
When two channels are playing the same content, for example
one in standard and one in high definition, the broadcaster
applies an audio watermark. This is inaudible to the human ear
but can be picked up by the meter, allowing it to allocate the
data correctly.
We have an additional technique for homes that use Sky, which
involves accessing service information codes from the set-top
box. We have also started working with metadata tags, which
are embedded by broadcasters into online television content.
The data from the panel are sent back to Kantar Media at 2am
before being processed and weighted to be representative of
the whole of the UK. They are then released to the industry at
9.30am each day. These figures are called overnights and
show all of the previous days TV viewing.
These figures not only include those who watched the
programme at the time it was broadcast but also those who
recorded it and watched it back the same day. This is referred
to as viewing on the same day as live or VOSDAL.
Overnights however are not the viewing figures that appear on
our website. These are consolidated ratings and include catchup, or time-shifted, viewing that happened up to seven days
after the original broadcast. The consolidated ratings are the
BARB gold standard on which the UK broadcasting and
advertising industries rely for all reporting and trading.
We are also now able to measure time-shifted viewing that
happened up to 28 days later. All of our data is matched to the
programme and advertising schedule to give viewing estimates
for every programme and commercial that has been broadcast.
(I have taken reference from their website)
http://www.barb.co.uk/about-us/barb-for-students?_s=4
Television research agencies Who we are and what we do

Thinkbox is the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK, in

all its forms broadcast, on-demand and interactive. It works
with the marketing community with a single ambition: to help
advertisers get the best out of todays TV. Its shareholders
are Channel 4, ITV, Sky Media, Turner Media Innovations and
UKTV, who together represent over 90% of commercial TV
advertising revenue through their owned and partner TV
channels. Associate Members are RTL Group, Virgin Media,
TalkTalk, London Live, Norways SBS Discovery and Australias
ThinkTV. Discovery Channel UK, UTV and STV also give direct
financial support.
TV today has more to offer advertisers than ever before, not
least because this growing medium remains at the heart of
popular culture and advertising effectiveness. From
understanding how audiences engage with TV advertising,
uncovering what the latest technological developments mean,
explaining innovative and affordable solutions, and
encouraging creativity to providing the rigorous proof of
effectiveness that advertisers need, Thinkbox is here to help
customers meet their marketing objectives. In 2013, the UK TV
advertising market was worth 4.63 billion, an increase of 3.5%
on the previous year and the fourth consecutive year of growth.
In the last two years, Thinkbox has won a number of awards
including Media 360s Industry Body of the Decade, which was
voted for by the advertising community; Best Business to
Business Marketing at The Marketing Society Awards for
Excellence; the Grand Prix award for Best Media Research of
the Year from the Media Research Group; the awards for
Advertising and Media Research from the Market Research
Society; and its TV advertising has been awarded by The British
Television Advertising Awards/ The British Arrows, the APA,
D&AD and Creative Circle. Thinkboxs Harvey the dog ad was
voted 2010s Ad of the Year by a poll of ITV viewers, with the
follow up TV Ad Harvey & Rabbit appearing in Nielsens
study of the Most Liked Ads of 2012 and Campaigns Top 10 TV
& Cinema Ads of 2012.

One of Thinkboxs top priorities is to ensure that the industry is

kept up to speed with the rapid changes happening to TV. It is
important that people are equipped with the knowledge and
necessary skills to take advantage of all that TV has to offer.
There are three regular training workshops:
1 An Introduction to Television
2 This workshop is a full day specifically designed for new
starters in the TV industry - whether advertisers, agency
or sales people.
3
4 An Introduction to TV Technology
5 This half day workshop gives an insight into the latest TV
technologies and what they mean for advertisers.
6
7 Advanced TV Training Workshop
8 Aimed at people who have been in the media industry for
several years, this workshop explores more sophisticated
approaches to planning TV campaigns.
All training workshops are free to people working at a UK
advertiser, a media or advertising agency, or for one of
Thinkboxs shareholders or their partner companies. To attend a
workshop, simply fill out the registration form in the Training
section of our website.
Bespoke advertiser and agency presentations
Were also very happy to arrange bespoke presentations. Just
let us know what youre interested in and we can arrange a
tailored session which can be held either at our offices or yours
if more convenient. Get in touch with our Planning Team if
youd like to explore this further.
I have taken reference from their website.
http://www.thinkbox.tv/about-us/

Sources of information

rates cardsA rate card is a document containing prices and descriptions

for the various ad placement options available from a media
outlet. Like the rack rate at a hotel, this is generally the
maximum price that one may pay. Most advertising buyers will
pay significantly less than this, receiving discounts due to
volume, a desire to sell unused space, or other factors.
Information found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_card

Advertisers information packsIt is something that provides rate cards, insertion dates,
publication dates and more.
advertisers would like companies like this because they are
telling you and showing you that the are the worlds leading
advertisers.