AO2 - Regulatory Organisations Research

Following my marketing plan, I decided to do some more research into media regulatory bodies in order to make my campaign my successful and industry standard.


BARB
The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) is the organisation that compiles television audiences in the UK. BARB was introduced to replace the previous ratings system, JICTAR, where the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5 and BSkyB collected their own audience figures. BARB has around 5,000 homes in which they place a box above their TV which tracks what channel they are watching. The data they collect is then multiplied to give an average across the UK and published the next day at 9.30am, known as the overnight ratings. A week or so later, the 'timeshift', online and recorded figures are gathered and published. BARB is extremely important in commercial television to see whether or not their advertising has worked.

RAJAR
RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research Limited) was founded in 1992 to gather the audience figures of all radio stations operating in the UK. RAJAR is owned by the BBC and the RadioCentre - the UK's commercial radio trade body. Before RAJAR was set up, the BBC and The CRCA, RadioCentre's predecessor, gathered their audience figures separately. The way RAJAR collects data using Ipsos MORI, responsible for door-to-door surveys and polls. RAJAR hand out diaries to 130,000 a year, and the data is then collected based on what the people fill in. The diaries require you to fill in what radio station you have listened to and at what time. I have participated in one of these diaries in the past year and you are required to write down the radio stations you have listened to in the past week and at what times, then, fill it out online and after a week, your account is shut down as they compiled the figures.

ABC
The ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation) is based in both the UK and Ireland and is responsible for two things. The ABC manage and up-hold standards that the media industry needs to determine how the industry data is prepared and reported. The second responsibility of the Audit Bureau of Circulation is to offer an audit and compliance service to check that data and processes meet these industry agreed standards. The ABC is non-for-profit and governed by the media industry with elected board members, consisting of advertisers, advertising agencies, media owners and their representative trade bodies.

ASA
ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority, a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) that regulates the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK. The ASA is not funded by the government but by a levy on the media industry.

CAP
The CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice) is the sister organisation of the ASA. Whereas it is the ASA's responsiblity to investigate and moderator content of advertisements and sales promotions, it is the CAP's responsiblity is to revise and update the British code of advertising, direct marketing and sales promotion through it's code policy team.

CAVIAR
CAVIAR (Cinema and Video Industry Audience Research) was established in 1985 to provide reliable cinema audience and marketing figures for media planners. CAVIAR asks 2,500 people, aged 7 to 44, in the UK to complete a survey to compiled audience figures.