Commercial Minutage and Breaks Report

Ofcom has a requirement for Barb reports to delivered on a weekly basis. Data from the reports, which will need to cover the latest available 7-day consolidated Barb week, will be used as part of investigations for determining non-compliance with different COSTA rules. It may also be used for external purposes such as being included in Ofcom's published decisions.

Tenderers must have a relevant subscription to Barb. Ofcom uses the AdvantEdge TV analysis tool and while the COSTA reports do not need to be extracted from this software, any data that is provided to Ofcom must be replicable.

The requirement is for data delivery only, but it will involve working collaboratively with the Standards team to make the delivery the best fit for their purposes and needs.

The relevant COSTA rules for which monitoring reports are required are captured in a table within the 'Detailed Requirements' section below. The data in the reports will need to identify potential breaches of these rules.

As a minimum, the service must deliver the following:

• The data must be delivered in a timely manner, no later than 10 working days after 7-day consolidation of the latest Barb week;
• The data must be robust and thoroughly quality checked, so as to be publication ready (if required);
• The proposed service team must have a demonstrable understanding of the Barb commercial spots and programme databases;
• The data must be easy to understand.