The Asbof and Basbof levies are collected by advertising agencies at the point of sale of an advertisement and remitted to the following bodies on a quarterly basis:
ASBOF – The Advertising Standards Board of Finance.
BASBOF – The Broadcasting Standards Board of Finance.

Their purpose is to finance self-regulation of the industry through the ASA, Advertising Standards Authority which oversees standards and practise.  The levy is typically set at 0.1% of the ad’s cost.  It is a voluntary levy, the volunteer being the advertiser, but is often levied automatically so the advertiser needs to opt out if they don’t wish to participate.

For those agencies with advertising agency software, the need is to bill and account for the levy.  The levy is charged on each relevant media buy and the total amount collected is then remitted to Asbof/Basbof quarterly.  No VAT is chargeable on the sale or remittance.

For an advertising agency system the essentials to accommodate are:
1. An advertiser needs to be able to opt out both generally and in circumstances of their own choice.  This means that the client and campaign records must allow this flexible approach.
2. The billing process should calculate the levy on all applicable advertising ie – where the advertiser has permitted it and where the advertisement falls within the category of advertising that carries the levy.
3. The levy should exclude VAT in the invoice calculation.
4.  The levy collected needs to be accrued for quarterly remittance to the relevant body.

The following provides some guidance on the levy.

LEVY
- The levy is 0.1% of the advertising cost to the client for the relevant categories of advertising shown below.
- The levy is not liable to Value Added Tax.
- The levy must always be shown separately when an agency bills the client.- The levy is not liable to Value Added Tax.
- The wording for general use in Rate Cards and Standard Conditions of Acceptance of Orders is:
“All advertising charges (except classified lineage and semi-display) are subject to a 0.1% Advertising Standards Board of Finance (asbof) levy, payable by advertisers to help finance the self-regulatory system administered by the Advertising Standards Authority”.

INCLUDED ADVERTISING – where the levy applies
- Press – newspapers and magazines (including inserts) Outdoor Cinema Internet
- Television, radio and cable advertising by broadcasters licensed by Ofcom.

EXCLUDED ADVERTISING – where the levy does not apply
- Advertising outside the UK
- Advertising for certain prescription medicines.
- Advertising of a party political nature
- Classified lineage and semi-display advertising. These are subject to the Code of Advertising Practice. Their exclusion from the levy is simply due to the impracticability of levy collection on the very small units of expenditure involved.
- Internet searches, and payments on a pay per click basis for customers accessing websites.

For more information the place to go is:
THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS BOARD OF FINANCE LIMITED
5th Floor 21 Berners Street London W1T 3LP
Tel: 020 7580 7071 Fax: 020 7580 7057
and a more detailed guide can be found within this pdf:

http://www.asbof.co.uk/resources/guides/asbof_levy_guide_2007.pdf

Thames Computer Services provides Advertising Agency Systems.  Our ADvantage system is specialist software for agencies of any type or size including full service, creative, media independents, PR and any agency in the communications industry.  Our systems are used throughout the UK and in Europe.

ADvantage is an integrated suite of software including media buying, job management, workflow, time management (timesheets), orders, billing and a fully integrated sales, purchase and nominal ledger.  It can be installed on an agency’s own server or hosted over the Internet.  Our new Saas, Software as a Service (see our short video), over the Internet service is great for agencies wishing to cut the cost overheads of admin and provide a flexible working environment where staff can access the system from anywhere they have an Internet connection, home, office or travelling.  Its easy to deploy, great value and is charged for on a pay-as-you-go basis with no initial capital outlay.  We can even do your bookkeeping for you!

An Apple iPhone is a marvellous and desirable object in well >>>  oh so many respects.

The user interface is just stunning. It is brilliantly thought through with one simple button returning you to the main Icon menu with a single touch. A simple click over switch turns off ringing and well recessed volume and off buttons do their job well. It is also a sophisticated 3G and WiFi handheld device that also functions really well as a phone. Its touch screen works amazingly well to the slightest touch but ultimately this beautiful object is hamstrung by its proprietary and hidden operating system. This creates many drawbacks so lets look at one of them: The simple desire to use a song as a ringtone, something that almost every UK user will want to do.

Apple offers two solutions to this problem, neither of which actually work if you are a PC user in the UK.

Firstly, you can obtain their chosen software Garageband. This can reportedly be used to do the trick but guess what? It only runs on an Apple computer.

There is no Windows version (Doh)

Alternatively, you can do what Apple want you to do. Buy the song from them and then pay again to have it converted to a ring tone. Sounds easy and I was happy to do so BUT it still wasn’t possible because this service only exists on iTunes in the USA and not in the UK. Why not  >>> no idea, but if you live here and use an iPhone and a PC, there is no song ringtone solution for you.

Unless, that is you choose to hack it. So to save you a bit of time here is how I did it >>>

Warning do not not bother attempting this with a song bought from Apple as it will not work!

First get your chosen MP3 song loaded into iTunes 8. You can do this by ripping a CD you own using Windows media, first making sure the RIP options are set to create MP3 format files.

You will end up with a file called ”songname’ .MP3 – Note that on your actual song it will have the real songname e.g. rolloverbeethoven.mp3

Now import that song into iTunes library using the import file option in iTunes.

Find and highlight the song in iTunes with a right click on your PC, choose properties and edit the songs properties in iTunes so that the song is no more than 30 secs long.

Warning – Any longer and it will not sync across to your phone.

Next highlight your chosen song and choose create an AAC version from the drop down iTunes menus.

This will make a second song called rolloverbeethoven with a file extension of .MPA which is the Apple song format.

Now rather weirdly, highlight and delete the MPA song from iTunes but do NOT choose send to recycle bin.

Opt instead to keep it in iTunes which kind of orphans it there.

Now exit iTunes and use Windows search to find rolloverbeethoven.mpa

Rename it in Windows search to rolloverbeethoven.mpr

That is right, you guessed it, the r in that file extension is because .mpr is the ringtone format for iTunes and your iPhone.

Now just double click on it to open the file from Windows Search. This will cause iTunes to open and >>> it will move it to the iTunes ringtones folder automatically.

Now sync your iPhone with your PC and your new ringtime will sync over to the iPhone.

Choose your new ringtone on the phone and finally this ‘easy’ job is done.

Alternatively, you could avoid all such palarva by buying a touch phone with a decent operating system where you drill down into files and folders. One that isn’t being so restrictive to your use so they can sell you content. Windows Mobile 6.1 on a 3G/WiFi phone is just such an animal. An HTC Touch HD is a good phone choice with its big screen and TouchFlo skin but to be fair it still doesn’t 100% compete with that iPhone sexy user interface.

Come ON Microsoft, play to your strengths but lose the tired user interface.

Modernise it with some new ideas and take full advantage of 3G, WiFi and touch screen on todays phones.

It’s time for a new Windows mobile operating system.

Thames Computer Services provides IT Support in London.  We are a Microsoft Certified Partner and provide outsourced IT support and Microsoft support for corporates.  We undertake network monitoring, server monitoring and supply PC hardware and software, software integration services and network cabling.  Through outsourced IT support we can provide expert help in implementing Unified Communications and IP Convergence and supply appropriate hardware and software.  Network security is an essential element of our IT support London offer and we cover security issues such as virus detection, spam avoidence, firewall setup and management.

Roger Perrin, Managing Director of Thames, said “the new Code of Practise will differentiate the quality of our advertising agency software (Advantage) and support services and re-assure our clients and potential clients that they are dealing with a serious organisation that follows the industries ‘best practice’ model”.

Dennis Keeling,CEO,BASDA and Roger Perrin, CEO, Thames Computer Services Ltd.

ADvantage, is a flexible, integrated software solution, designed by Thames Computer Services, and is currently accessed by all types of Advertising and communications agencies throughout the UK and Europe

The ADvantage system links Production (Job Management), Media buying, and Financial accounting, in one single software package. It includes job workflow, budgets, timesheets, orders, billing. ADvantage is delivered over the Internet as a SaaS, Software as a Service, application or can be installed on in-house server.

About BASDA
BASDA, the Business Application Software Developers Association, represents more than 250 of the world’s leading applications software developers and is the acknowledged voice of the software applications industry. It is recognised by the European Commission, the UK Government and the United Nations.
Since BASDA was founded in 1993, the organisation has gone from strength to strength in terms of achievement and membership.
BASDA is involved in setting international standards. Since its inception it has worked on VAT, EDI, EMU, IFRS and eBusiness. Whenever new developments and regulations affect the business & accounting software industry, BASDA works with the ruling bodies to ensure that any changes are made with the industry’s consultation and co-operation. As a result, BASDA has forged strong relationships with many government departments and now sits on most EU and UK Government initiatives and working parties.

Guy’s role is to liaise with the government, regulators and industry bodies – including the Advertising Standards Authority, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and Ofcom – to promote IAB guidelines to regulate online advertising.

Since online advertising has been self regulating to date with advertising agencies, the ad networks and the advertisers all working to their own best practices its widely expected that Guy will review the self-regulatory framework.

Since more and more people are concerned with the industries stance to targeting children, or adverting food to children it is believe tighter regulatory control is needed.

Advertising agencies have noticed that more and more responses from TV commercials and Radio Ads are coming via the Internet rather than over the phone. Historically the higher percentage of responses have normally been generated by the phone but in 2007 Internet is starting to rearrange the balance, with 70% of all responses via the internet.

With dull and boring reruns, reality TV shows and foreign imports starting to dominate the TV channels. In the short term, there are concerns that the television networks and advertising agencies will not be able to deliver on their audience commitments they promised the advertisers in their media schedules. Since many advertising agencies sell spots (TV Commercials) on promised viewership they simply are not able to deliver the audience that they promised.

Advertising agencies and advertisers are already looking for alternatives such as cable and Sky. Some advertisers are increasing frequency of the their commercials trying to capture the audience levels they were once hitting before the strike started.

The short term implications of this it that advertisers are having to pay higher cost-per-thousands than they did previously as the audiences are simply not available.

The long-term implications of that are unclear, though if the strike does drags on , major advertisers may decide to seek non-broadcast alternatives.

Most industry observers think the walkout could last for months so advertising agencies could be hit hard.