Television Regulations Bodies

By Sonny Arlett

This booklet will feature:

Introduction:

Information Page

Regulations:

ASA
Ofcom

Audience Information:

Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB)

Audience measurement panels
Ratings
Face-to-face interviews
Focus groups
Questionnaires
Programme profiles
Television research agencies

Sources of Information:

Rates Cards
Advertisers Information Packs
Research Agency Websites

Introduction

Information Page
In this booklet we will be looking at these two television regulation companies, The ASA &
Ofcom.
The reason why we need regulations in television is because there are certain things that
are not allowed to be aired on television. For example sex, drug abuse, child abuse,
animal abuse, nudity, violence, racism & sexism.

Regulations
The ASA
The ASA is an independent company that handles the regulations within advertising in
the UK. They mainly focus on what content is being put into the advert, if the advert is
offending someone, the ASA have to deal with the complaint. For example if violence is
taking place in the advert, the advert would have to change or will have to be taken
down from broadcasting. They also regulate the advert before it has been broadcasted
across the UK. They ASA deals with explicit material, racism, sexism, child/animal abuse
and much more. In 2012 the ASA dealt with 31,298 complaints about 18,990 cases.
Their work led to 3700 adverts being changed or withdrawn. (www.ASA.org.uk)
Ofcom
Ofcom is a regulation body that deals with complaints, when a person sends a complaint
to Ofcom about the content being shown in the advert, they would send the complaint to
the ASA. The advert will have sections that you can write in about including sexism,
racism, child/animal abuse, violence and drug harm. Two adverts that were removed by
Ofcom were the Kylie Minogue Agent Provocateur because of the content being showed.
Ofcom must make sure that they act under the rules of parliament 2003. Ofcom do not
deal with accuracy in BBC programmes and the BBC license fee.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHood00sNJU)
The other advert that was banned was the Morrisons Burger Advert because it was
promoting unhealthy eating.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az2P9G7tdEs)
(www.Ofcom.org.uk)
Audience Information
BARB
BARB is a not-for-profit business for people that support the industry. The positives of
using BARB is that you can read reviews from people and also see the top 10/30 charts of
ratings.
BARBs website will tell information such as whos watching, what they are watching,
when they are watching and what platform they are watching from.
BARBs main purpose is to show the ratings of shows that are being viewed. It also shows
the stats of how well a TV show is doing and also shows what TV shows have the most
views when they were broadcasted.
BARB is important as it will let people know what TV shows are popular and how well they
are doing.
(www.BARB.co.uk)

Audience Measurement Panels

AMP is a group that will help a company decide how to advertise their product/company
and what age group it would be advertised for. AMP is useful because they can you
understand more about who you are going to advertise this to and how. Examples of this
is Kantar Media (www.kantarmedia.co.uk)
Ratings
Ratings will show how much a TV has been viewed and it would be given a rating. Ratings
are useful because it shows how many people are watching and tells if its popular or not.
Examples of this is that you can see ratings in TV magazines and see what TV shows are
good.
Face To Face Interviews
Face-to-face interviews are when an interview is taken place with both the interviewer &
interviewee being recorded. Its useful because you get the information straight away
and you can ask all the questions that you need answers for. Examples of this are in TV
pilot because they need to advertise it to the right audience.
Focus Groups
Focus groups are a group of people who are asked to give their views on what they have
been shown. Its useful because it gets the group to socialize about the topic and get the
information needed. Examples of this are Focus Groups for a new TV show. (Pilot)
Questionnaires
Questionnaires are a set of questions given to the general public, this helps give
feedback to the industry. This is useful because you can get a good understanding of the
customer needs. Examples of this is when filling in feedback when asked on a webpage.
Programme Profiles
Programme profiles are when the target audience and advert match. This helps because
it can show what type of people enjoy these adverts. Examples of this is with Pet food
adverts and animal lovers.

Sources of Information
Rates Card
A rates card adds up the cost to air the advert. It looks at the programme its aired
between, the channel its on, the time that its aired and how many people are viewing it.
A rate card includes prices and descriptions of the payments and ad placement options
that are available from the media outlet.

Advertisers
Packs

Information

Advertisers Information Packs are packages that include Rates card, insertion dates,
publication dates etc. The package will include all the information that you will need to
know when looking at advertising.
An advertising company would find these useful as it tells them how much money they
can use, it also shows when they should advertise their advert and what channels it
should be on.
Research Agency Websites
Research Agency Websites would help companies advertise when and where they should
advertise their product. They are important because they will indicate what type of
advertising would be used for the type of product you are advertising.
(www.lifestoryresearch.com)
(www.provokeinsights.com)