Process Standards

During late 1998 and early 1999, the ESC, Design Committee and EDI Task Force have addressed the fact that current electronic trading practices do not always conform to the original intentions or rules associated with electronic trading.

The following Process Standards, formerly known as the "Rules of the Road," have been revised in order to establish a realistic business process that satisfies the needs of both advertising agencies and cable networks.

Mandatory

• Industry standards or rules constituting current cable buying and selling business practices (e.g. broadcast clock and calendar).

Best Practices

• Goals that can be complied with today from a technological standpoint but that are not always practical or possible in the real world of cable buying and selling.
• Adherence to these goals improves the cable selling and buying process regardless of technical issues associated with EDI.
• These goals should be followed whenever possible.
• Inability to adhere to these goals does not preclude trading via EDI (e.g. network clearance confirmation within two days).

Technology Dependent

• Goals that cannot be adhered to today for technological reasons but that should be followed in the future in order to improve/expand the EDI process (e.g. serialization).

• Rotation is defined as equitable distribution both horizontally and vertically within agreed time parameters and program (s).

• Changes to rotation/ROS day, date and time parameters, not specific spot airings within these rotations, require deal/contract change.

• Salesperson will be responsible for monitoring adherence to agreed upon schedule.

• Run of schedule (ROS) must conform to day, date and time parameters without regard to equitable distribution.

• For networks not utilizing a standardized broadcast clock, units will require conversion of time and date to correspond to AC Nielsen clock, defined as 6:00 – 29:59 Eastern time.

• Sell patterns cannot cross broadcast days.

• All Deals should begin on a Monday and end on a Sunday.

• A broadcast month will end on the final Sunday of a calendar month.
  
• A broadcast quarter will end on the final Sunday of a calendar quarter (final Sunday of March, June, September and December).
  
• The broadcast calendar as defined applies to proposals, contracts and stewardship.

• Inventory will be removed from sale by network upon agency hold notification.
  
• Changes to holds or orders need to be approved and confirmed by both sides.

• Conflict resolution must occur prior to airing.

• Network and agency must be in synch prior to brand allocation. Prior to air, as long as total commercial time remains constant, agency can split/combine units during brand allocation without violating the in-synch rule. The number of splits/combines, if any, is to be negotiated at time of deal. Exceptions and conflicts can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

NOTE: This implies that the cable network will be required to fully accept the electronic transmission of the brand allocation "as is" every time, including splits/combines per agreement with deal.

• Deal changes via brand allocations cannot be guaranteed.

• Requests for brand allocation changes cannot be guaranteed.

• Agency and network schedules must be in-synch at point of issue.
  
• Traffic instructions are not a means to make order changes.
  
• Conflict notification and resolution are required prior to air.

• The methodology for audience analysis will be agreed upon by buyer and seller at time of negotiation.

• Demographics must be specified by the agency in time for the transmission of the deal.

• Any changes outside of original agreement parameters require buyer notification and approval, specifically number of units by time frame, rotation parameters, programming elements and unit length.
  
• Changes, via hard copy or electronic transmission, are communicated by unit and do not require deal revision unless these changes are to elements that define the deal such as guaranteed CPMs, total number of units and total expenditures.

• Network will notify agency of any errors by next business day after air.
  
• Certified post-air schedule notification will be derived from reconciled log.

• Agency may request the current status of a rotation at any time. Status requests are a snapshot of rotation at a given time and cannot be used by agencies to request changes or to update agency databases prior to actual airings.

• Network will confirm clearance of inventory to agency within two business days.

• Agency will respond with hold-to order confirmation within agreed upon length of time (i.e., order letter confirmation).

• Audience information for guaranteed demographics will tie back to guaranteed CPM in deal header on initial transmission of the deal and all contracts. Deals should not be rejected due to differences in rounding.

• In order for agencies to incorporate the most up-to-date version of a deal capturing all changes made thus far, quarterly information will be electronically transmitted to the agencies one (1) month prior to the quarter start date. Initial electronic transmission of the whole deal is optional based upon client or agency requirements. Quarterly information will replace the initial deal information.

• The receiver is responsible for the translation of data into their own system (s).

• All brand allocations will be delivered to the network (s) a minimum of ten (10) business days prior to the first affected air date. This implies that the agency, not the network, is providing the brand allocation.

• Networks can perform brand allocations based upon agency specifications, however, the Best Practice is for the agencies to perform the allocations.

• Initial instructions for the networks to perform the brand allocations will be delivered to the network (s) 15 business days prior to the quarter or first air date.

• Network (s) will provide initial confirmation of brand allocation and conflict information seven (7) days prior to airing.

• Once v3.0 change transactions and brand allocations are implemented, networks will send only unallocated versions of initial contracts and deals. Agencies will allocate these and send brand allocations (via ANSI 860 documents) to the networks. Changes or revisions will also be sent via ANSI 860 documents versus the 843s and 850s being used for these transactions today.

• At a minimum, network will receive approved copy instructions five business days prior to air.

• Material should arrive prior to receipt of traffic instructions. It is the joint responsibility of the brand and buying agencies to ensure material arrives prior to receipt of traffic instructions when the two organizations are different.

• Demographics should be specified by the agency at the time of submission of the order.

• Invoices will be received by agency within five business days after end of network’s billing month.
  
• Agency will complete invoice matching in one to two business days.
  
• Identification and notification to network of discrepancies will be performed by the agency within five business days.

• The Invoice Clearance goal is resolution of discrepancies within 30 days.

• Units require serialization.
  
• Each unit within a deal must be associated with a unique identifier.
  
• Verbal and last minute changes must be followed up by a corresponding electronic transmission.
  
• There is no implied information in the unit serial number.

• Agency and network must stay in-synch through the life of the deal.

• When an agency and network determine that they are not in-synch, they should stop the electronic trading process and verbally resolve the problem(s). Electronic trading should recommence once they have mutually agreed to changes necessary to be in-synch.

• Agency must review deals and contracts and accept or reject them within a specified period of time.

• All change requests made for units in a particular contract must be reviewed as a set and approved in totality prior to implementing the revision. Disagreements require verbal resolution and resubmission of agreed upon changes in totality.

• Electronic agency confirmation of receipt and agreement to (or rejection of) deals, contracts and changes is required.
  
• Electronic changes must be content accepted within 24 hours of receipt, provided the changes are received prior to an agreed upon cut-off time.

• The cable television industry agrees to a cut-off time of 2:00 PM Eastern Time for change requests expected to be responded to within 24 hours.

• Agency will communicate with network electronically using data elements and codes at the serialized level – agency must assign copy to individual units.

Audience Deficiency Unit (ADU)Audience Deficiency Unit (ADU)
Inventory schedule based on mutual agreement for underdelivery that cannot be recovered by seller.

Bonus UnitBonus Unit
No-cost units where delivery does not count against guarantee and are scheduled upon mutual agreement.

BookendBookend
The first and last position in the same commercial pod.

Mirrored UnitsMirrored Units
Companion units with same copy and same pod position in the same program repeating at a different air time on the same broadcast day.

Assignment of dollars and copy instructions go to the primary unit.

Primary and companion units must have separate and unique serial numbers.

Transaction specifications must express the linkage between primary and companion units.

Recapturable UnitsRecapturable Units
Inventory scheduled for an anticipated underdelivery that can be recovered by the sellers upon mutual agreement.

RotationRotation
Rotation is defined as equitable distribution both horizontally and vertically within agreed time parameters and program (s).

Run of ScheduleRun of Schedule
Run of schedule (ROS) must conform to day, date and time parameters without regard to equitable distribution.

SerializationSerialization
Serialization is the process whereby each unit is assigned a unique numeric value in order to track changes to the unit throughout the life of the buy.

SynchronizationSynchronization
Synchronization or being in-synch can be defined as an agency and a network having the same version of a deal and all contracts on a unit-by-unit basis.