Research > Scheduling > Television Advertising Scheduling Television Advertising Scheduling OTS is currently applying "squeaky wheel" optimization to the problem of scheduling television advertisements for television stations.  There are a variety of constraints in this problem domain. Often, an advertiser doesn't want their ad to appear near the ad of a direct competitor.  Additionally, an advertiser can request very specific time slots for their ad, or a very general one.  The goal is to place the ads so as to maximize the station's revenue.  Traditionally, this has been done by placing the most expensive ads first, a technique which can produce sub-optimal solutions.  Initial experimental data suggests that optimization can yield non-trivial savings for the television stations.