Scheduling Network Television Programs: A Heuristic Audience Flow Approach to Maximizing Audience Share

A heuristic method for scheduling a television network's programs in order to maximize the network's share of audience, or any other criterion related to viewership is proposed. Using an extension of the audience flow model of individual viewing choice, combined with a heuristic search procedure, it is indicated that network audience shares may be unexpectedly sensitive to scheduling. The proposed method may be used either to evaluate candidate program schedules or to select the schedule which maximizes the heuristic's objective function. Managerial constraints, such as requiring childrens' programs to be shown before 8 p.m. may be easily incorporated.