Broadcast Programming Techniques ABCs Weekly Lineup Andrew Gonzalez

Broadcast Programming: Techniques & ABC’s Weekly Lineup Andrew Gonzalez Eli Levin Morgan Strauss

ABC’s 2010 Fall Schedule

Scheduling Strategies • • • Lead-off Lead-in Hammocking Block Programming Tent-Poling

Lead-off Lead-in Hammocking Block Programming Tent. Poling

A 18 -49+ • • • A 18 -49+ = 100*(shows average rating/league average) Key: o o o 0 -69: flop 70 -99: marginal 100 -124: solid 125 -149: hit 150 -199: big hit 200+: megahit For Friday: o 60 -74: solid o 75+: hit

Our Problem • • P 6 | prec, dj, wj | maxj (A 18 -49+) -> maxt, d (A 18 -49+) o prec: Dancing with the Stars § Performance show must be broadcasted before the results show o pj: Duration of shows (1, 2, 4) o wj: A 18 -49+ rankings *Heuristic Based Objectives

Machine Environment • P 6: M 1, M 2, M 3, M 4, M 5, M 6 o Parallel Machines Sunday through Friday, respectively

Machine Environment Diagram

Constraint Set • • prec, (rj), dj, wj Precedence Constraint See: Dancing With The Stars o Lead-In o • • Release/Due Date o all shows due by 11 Weighted on A 18 -49+

Variable Objective • • See Algorithm for Pure Programming Variability of Objectives Overall Viewership o Promote specific shows o others o • How do we achieve these? o With different heuristic approaches conditioned off of our base algorithm

Our Scheduling Heuristic 1. Create an empty 6 x 6 matrix with starting times 1 -6 (8: 00 -10: 30) on the columns & days 1 -6 (Monday-Sunday) on the rows 2. Create the set Shows containing all aired shows in 2010 -11 & the set Slots containing all available slots in the matrix 3. Sort all shows in descending order by 2010 -11 A 18 -49+ rankings 4. Sort all time slots in descending order by historical A 18 -49+ rankings 5. Set j: the next highest ranked show in Shows & set (t, d): the next highest ranked slot in Slots 6. If j has a precedence constraint Do Steps 7 & 8 together for j and jprec maximizing the sum of A 18 -49+ rankings for both feasible time slots If there is no room for j and/or jprec according to its precedence constraint Delete the lowest ranked show(s) from a feasible time slot for j and/or jprec Add the deleted show(s) back to Shows and any remaining time back to Slots 7. If t + pj <= 6 & (t, d) thru (t+pj, d) is NOT already scheduled Schedule show j in slots (t, d) thru (t+pj, d) in the matrix Remove show j from Shows & remove slot (t, d) thru (t+pj, d) from Slots 8. If (t+pj, d) is scheduled already Set the iterative variable (t, d): next highest ranked slot in Slots Go back to Step 6

Ranking Time Slots & Shows

Our Schedule for ABC’s Weekly Lineup

ABC’s Lineup vs. Our Heuristic

Going Forward • Implement scheduling strategies into our heuristic o Lead-off: early due date o Lead-in: precedence constraint o Hammocking: precedence constraint (other variations exist as well) o Block Programming: precedence constraint, scheduling on same machine o Tent-Poling: release time-due-date combination