Media Company Uses Analytics to Schedule Radio Advertisement Spots

In this paper, we describe the implementation of an optimization suite (OS) to facilitate the scheduling of radio advertisements for one of the largest media companies in the United States. Advertisements are scheduled adhering to complex criteria from the advertisers with the objective of maximizing the revenue for the company. Advertisers offer two types of flexibility for demand fulfillment: market flexibility provides an opportunity to shift the demand across demographics, and time flexibility allows the demand to be shifted across the broadcasting time horizon. The scale of inventories, fair and equitable distribution, flexibilities, and other complex criteria from the advertisers necessitated the development of a sophisticated OS to generate rosters for the placement of advertisements. The OS uses optimization models and four heuristics procedures to generate an advertisement placement roster for each station. The company has adapted the OS into its information systems to seamlessly incorporate optimization into its decision-making process.