Broadcast Programming: Techniques & ABC’s Weekly Lineup

Andrew GonzalezEli LevinMorgan 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

A18-49+

• A18-49+ = 100*(shows average rating/league average)

• Key:o 0-69: flopo 70-99: marginalo 100-124: solido 125-149: hito 150-199: big hito 200+: megahit

• For Friday:o 60-74: solido 75+: hit

Our Problem

• P6 | prec,dj,wj | maxj (A18-49+) -> maxt,d (A18-49+)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: A18-49+ rankings

• *Heuristic Based Objectives

Machine Environment

• P6: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6o Parallel Machines Sunday through Friday,

respectively

Machine Environment Diagram

Constraint Set

• prec, (rj), dj, wj

• Precedence Constrainto See: Dancing With The Starso Lead-In

• Release/Due Dateo all shows due by 11

• Weighted on A18-49+

Variable Objective

• See Algorithm for Pure Programming

• Variability of Objectiveso Overall Viewershipo Promote specific showso others

• How do we achieve these?o With different heuristic approaches conditioned off of

our base algorithm

Our Scheduling Heuristic1. Create an empty 6x6 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 A18-49+ rankings

4. Sort all time slots in descending order by historical A18-49+ 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 A18-49+ 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 heuristico Lead-off: early due dateo Lead-in: precedence constrainto Hammocking: precedence constraint (other variations exist as

well)o Block Programming: precedence constraint, scheduling on

same machineo Tent-Poling: release time-due-date combination