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Ad Revenue Optimization In Live Broadcasting, Dana G. Popescu, Pascale Crama

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In live broadcasting, the break lengths available for commercials are not always fixed and known in advance (e.g., strategic and injury time-outs are of variable duration in live sports transmissions). Broadcasters actively manage their advertising revenue by jointly optimizing sales and scheduling policies. We characterize the optimal dynamic schedule in a simplified setting that incorporates stochastic break durations and advertisement lengths of 15 and 30 seconds. The optimal policy is a "greedy" look-ahead rule that accounts for the remaining number of breaks; in this setting, there is no value to perfect information at the scheduling stage, and hence knowing the …