Commercial Advertising

In the 2012-13 Budget, the Government announced a trial of commercial advertising on the Bureau of Meteorology's site.

The Bureau of Meteorology website is one of the most popular websites in Australia. It is the number one government site, and also the number one site for weather information.

The commercial advertising trial was initially proposed as a revenue stream in the Munro Review of the Bureau of Meteorology's capacity to respond to future extreme weather and natural disaster events and to provide seasonal forecasting services.

The Bureau has contracted Digital Network Sales (DNS) to manage this advertising space on behalf of the Bureau.

An Online Advertising Policy has been developed and approved by a Federal multi-agency Steering Committee and then Parliamentary Secretary Farrell. The policy has been founded on existing industry advertising laws, regulations and codes of conduct.

The core principles of this policy are the maintenance of the Bureau's services and respect for the reputation of the Bureau and federal Government and its departments.

The policy prescribes the types and formats of advertising that will be prohibited. For example, the policy will exclude offensive material or advertisements directed at children. Formats such as pop-ups will also be excluded.

As long as proposed advertisements meet the Policy standards they will be permitted on the Bureau's website. The Bureau therefore will not be explicitly approving each advertisement nor endorsing products and services that appear as advertisements on the website. The Bureau will remove any advertising that is perceived to be in breach of the Bureau's Online Advertising Policy or perceived to be negatively affecting the Bureau's brand and reputation.

All external parties involved in commercial advertising on the Bureau's website will be required to adhere to the Online Advertising Policy.

The time required to load Bureau web pages is not expected to be significantly affected when advertisements are placed on those pages and the website will remain compatible with current technology.

Work has been conducted to clean up the back of the pages which has reduced the overall size of each page. The introduction of advertising is expected to fall in line with current page sizes.

Check if you have the most recent version of your browser, and upgrade if needs be.

Investigate and consider other browser options.

Most browsers have ad blocking options. Links to ad blockers for common browsers can be found at:

• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Opera

The advertising size aligns with an industry standard ad-unit of 300 x 250 pixels. By complying with an industry standard we are ensuring the Bureau website can accommodate the ads the Advertising Networks will provide.

The Bureau will not be placing any advertisements on the pages that are dedicated to warnings. Warnings information will continue to take precedence over other information on the Bureau's home page and other State pages.

To advertise on the Bureau's website, Advertisers should contact:
Digital Network Sales (DNS) on +61 2 9409 8680, sales@digitalnetworksales.com.au
Or, their Advertising or Media Agency

Maintaining the Bureau's high quality services to the public remains paramount. These services include providing weather, climate, water and environmental information, in addition to warnings for severe weather events and natural disasters

A whole-of-government steering committee has implemented measures to mitigate the impact of advertising on the Bureau's services including:

1. a redesign of the homepage following extensive user testing;
2. the development of an online advertising policy that restricts any advertising deemed to be offensive or inappropriate; and
3. further restrictions on the placement of advertisements on warning pages.

Decisions on the future of advertising on the Bureau's websites will then be made by Government.

For complaints about specific advertisements email channel_management@bom.gov.au in the first instance. Following this, if the complainant is not satisfied with the response then complaints can be directed to the Advertising Standards Bureau.