Scheduling Spots on Television

The scheduling of advertisements, or spots, is an essential operational process of the television business that must be conducted daily. An efficient distribution of viewers among advertisers allows the television network to satisfy contracts as planned and also increase ad-sales revenue. Spot scheduling is a very hard multi-period scheduling problem. Schedules have to be created such that advertiser’s campaign goals are met and ad-sales revenue is maximized. Each campaign has a specific target group of viewers and a unique set of constraints that have to be met. In addition, the number of viewers is uncertain. In this paper, we describe a practical approach that combines mathematical programming and time series methods to create daily schedules that are ready for broadcasting. This approach generates high quality schedules, according to standard business metrics and in comparison with the mathematical optimal bound. Our methods are used by leading networks and they produce substantial increases in revenue. Key words: scheduling, optimization, advertising, television–business. 1