ForeTV books its spot in the future with second generation auto scheduler.
Reprinted from:
2009
MSA Focus continues development of their broadcast management solution, ForeTV, with completion of the second generation ForeTV Scheduler.
This extended and redesigned version of the integrated automatic commercial spot booking tool, offers greater flexibility, functionality and performance.
The Scheduler uses specially configured routines, which refer to the information held in ForeTV’s contract and order libraries to automatically fill, update and optimise sales logs on an ongoing basis.
This provides the ability to easily fill open inventory in both long and medium term sales logs, leaving experienced staff to concentrate on the more pressing tasks of fine tuning spot placement, including late addition spots and the finalising of all imminent and short term logs.
Once configured and started, the scheduler will continue to run until all commercial spots pre-selected for processing are analysed and placed.
A number of instances of the scheduler can be run simultaneously, meaning the scheduler can be configured to look at different periods in your future scheduling plans and fill, update or optimise those sales logs differently..
Scheduler configuration can be highly specific, looking at particular contracts over specific days on particular channels and regions etc, or left fairly general to ensure maximum placement. It is also possible to control how the ForeTV scheduler will analyse and fill sales logs, as there are different levels at which it can work:
Spot Booking level: Dealing with basic open inventory booking, this is most ideally suited to longer term schedules. The basic routine identifies contracts and orders that are valid for a defined time period and books unplaced spots the best it can
Pre-emption level: This deals with the prioritisation, optimisation and pre-emption of commercial spots and is most ideally suited to relatively short term schedules. This routine places and bumps spots based on a total priority derived from weightings given to the various priority values assigned throughout ForeTV.
Along with this the scheduler’s access to your sales logs can be restricted based on status, with the scheduler only having access to those schedules which are flagged to allow it. This means that specific logs within a time period can be locked, stopping the scheduler from accessing them and so ensuring they are not automatically amended, without the need to stop or reconfigure your standard or saved scheduler instances.
ForeTV continues to evolve providing ever more sophisticated, integrated and functional solutions to help any broadcast operation move forward and adapt within our fast paced and ever-changing industry.
