Method and system for scheduling commercial advertisement

摘要

A method and system for scheduling commercial advertisement are described in which a data processing system having the spot scheduler solver may be operable to receive an advertiser's order to place advertisement or commercial spots into one or more commercial television breaks. The order may comprise various constraints and requirements corresponding to the spots. The spots may be assigned to inventory buckets within the commercial breaks based on the constraints and requirements. When a conflict arises, a prioritization scheme may be performed to complete the assignment of spots not assigned and to generate a commercial break schedule. The prioritization scheme may be based on spot arrival lead time or on maximizing the sum of the rates corresponding to the spots. The data processing system may maximize the spread of the spots over the commercial break schedule. The commercial break schedule may be adjusted when additional orders are received.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
in a data processing system comprising one or more processors that are operable to process data:
receiving an advertiser's order to place one or more spots into one or more commercial breaks, wherein:
the advertiser's order comprises airing constraints and placement requirements corresponding to the one or more spots;each of the one or more commercial breaks comprises a plurality of inventory buckets;a position of each of the plurality of inventory buckets within each of the one or more commercial breaks defines a sequencing order of each of the inventory buckets within each of the one or more commercial breaks; andeach of the plurality of inventory buckets comprise a corresponding inventory type that indicates a type of content in each of the plurality of inventory buckets;assigning each of the one or more spots to at least one of the plurality of inventory buckets that are within each of the one or more commercial breaks based on the airing constraints and placement requirements, wherein:
characteristics of the assigned at least one of the plurality of inventory buckets that are within each of the one or more commercial breaks are matched with the airing constraints and requirements of each of the one or more spots; andthe one or more spots that are within each of the assigned at least one of the plurality of inventory buckets that are within each of the one or more commercial breaks are ranked based on the matching such that the airing constraints and placement requirements corresponding to the one or more spots are fulfilled;re-shuffling the one or more spots that are within each of the assigned at least one of the plurality of inventory buckets that are within each of the one or more commercial breaks;when at least one of the one or more spots are not assigned to the at least one of the plurality of inventory buckets that are within each of the one or more commercial breaks because of conflicts, performing a prioritization scheme to complete the assignment of the one or more spots that are not assigned, wherein spots are prioritized based on arrival lead time, all spots for a particular order are given same priority, and priorities are chosen such that a sum of all priorities post a certain arrival time is less than a priority on any spot prior to the certain arrival time; andgenerating a commercial break schedule based on the completed assignment of the one or more spots that are not assigned.