1.2. Start with the Context

As you know, Piccadilly Television holds the commercial television franchise for the Midlands of England. The people who buy the commercial airtime are the advertising agencies, and most agencies have their offices in central London. To be nearer their customers, Piccadilly has a sales office in London.

The sales executives are delighted with their offices in the charming mansion at Victoria Square. The leafy garden in the center of the square lends a calm and peaceful atmosphere to this part of London, which is well supplied with grand restaurants, corner cafes, and everything in between. You’ll get to know this area very well, as most of your time will be spent in London analyzing the requirements for a system to sell commercial airtime.

Piccadilly produces some of its own programmes, and buys others from a variety of programme suppliers both in England and overseas. These programme suppliers inform Piccadilly of their offerings, which include first-run films, sporting events, documentaries, talk shows, and old movies. Some of the programmes, such as the talk shows and documentaries, may be a series with a number of episodes. When the programme schedulers hear about a programme they want to buy, they send a programme purchase agreement to the supplier. Of course, they don’t buy all the programmes being offered, but choose programmes with the best potential for attracting viewers, and the best fit into the overall plans for scheduling.

Piccadilly’s programme schedulers have the complicated job of deciding the date that each programme should be transmitted, and where in the programme the commercial breaks should be placed. To make these decisions, the schedulers use the weekly ratings that are supplied by the audience measurement bureaus and that tell them how many people are watching which programmes. The schedulers must also follow the Broadcasting Board’s rules for placement of programmes and for the number and placement of commercial breaks within those programmes. Four times a year, the schedulers set a new programme transmission schedule for the coming quarter.

This schedule is sent to the Broadcasting Board for its review, as well as to all of the advertising agencies so that they know what commercial breaks will be available for sale in the next quarter. A commercial break is usually two or three minutes long, and is composed of spots of varying lengths that agencies buy to air their commercials. Piccadilly tries to maximize its revenue by completely filling the available breaktime with commercial spots.

The advertising agencies buy commercial spots that make up campaigns to advertise the products they represent. Each agency sends its campaign requirements to the Piccadilly sales executive who deals with that agency. The executive then models the campaign by selecting commercial breaks for the spots to occupy that will be profitable to Piccadilly, and that will deliver the required ratings to the advertiser. When the executive is satisfied with his selections, the suggested campaign is communicated to the agency. The agency responds by selecting spots from the executive’s suggestions and informing him of the choices. The executive finalizes the deal by sending the agency written confirmation of the agreed spots that make up the campaign.

One way that Piccadilly tries to attract advertisers is by making its rates as flexible as possible. Piccadilly researchers and management revise the rates quarterly, and ratecards for the period are sent to the agencies.

Figure 1.2.1: Part of Piccadilly’s ratecard illustrates the variety of rates that can be paid for a thirty-second spot. Fixed spots are the highest priced and are not moveable. Agencies use fixed spots to guarantee transmission during a targeted programme. Broad spots are moveable within a segment. Run-of-day, or ROD, means the spot can be moved within comparably priced segments on a given day. Run-of-week, or ROW, means that Piccadilly can transmit the spot almost any time. There are similar ratecards for other spot durations.

The rate paid for a spot is made up of two dependent factors: price and the degree of moveability. Simply speaking, the lower the price, the more moveable the spot. If the agency pays the lowest price, the spot may be transmitted at almost any time during a given week, subject to Piccadilly’s own scheduling requirements. The highest-priced spots are fixed in the breaks selected by the agency.

Some of the lower-priced rates have no guarantee that the spot will be transmitted at all. If the commercial breaks have all been filled, someone prepared to pay a higher rate can replace a previously sold lower-priced spot. A spot that is replaced by another one is preempted.

Agencies often buy spots at a low rate initially and upgrade if there is a danger of being preempted by a higher bidder. When such a danger threatens, the Piccadilly sales executive phones a preemption warning to the agency. In this case, the agency usually requests a spot upgrade, and the executive confirms the upgrade. Of course, the executives prefer to sell time at the higher rate at the start. It guarantees higher revenue, and saves administrative time in renegotiating the rates for spots.

Meanwhile, the advertising agencies design and write the copy for the campaign, and hire film production companies to make video recordings for each commercial and to supply them to the Piccadilly Programme Transmission Department. Some advertisers use several different commercials in a campaign, and the agency must send instructions on which copy is to be transmitted in each spot.

After their broadcast, the Piccadilly Programme Transmission Department sends details of each spot’s actual transmission time to the Computer Department, which generates an invoice for the agency. The Computer Department also produces revenue reports that go to Piccadilly management and that are used to help set the instructions for sales targets.

You are being asked to analyze Piccadilly’s system with the goal of automating most of the airtime sales functions. However, Piccadilly management wants you to look at more than just the sales side of the business. The managers believe you may discover other areas where computerization may be valuable, although there are several areas they do not want disrupted. Therefore, you have to show them what you intend to study.

Your assignment, then, is to propose the scope of the project by drawing a context diagram. This diagram summarizes, in one big bubble, all the processes of the system you are studying. The context diagram defines the system boundaries by showing the connections between your context of study and the companies, organizations, individuals, and other external bodies that interact with the system.

Think big. Include as much as you think useful in your study. Once you have drafted your context diagram, Piccadilly management will negotiate a final version with you before you begin the detailed analysis. Although you were hired to do the analysis for selling the airtime, you may well find that other functions within the company are linked to the airtime sales, and so should be included in your study. At this stage, even though you may doubt the usefulness of some functionality, it’s better to play it safe and include it than to later regret a missed opportunity.