Designing a Theme Based Schedule
Timeslot Themes enable the audience of the station to maintain some level of consistency and predictability in programming, while allowing for diverse content to always have a place on Public Access. Viewers will not always know exactly which show will be on at a given time, but they can always know what thematic category is on. This also enables us to send consistent info to TV Guide and other Electronic Programming Guides such that the EPG does not simply read "Public Access Programming".
The duration of each themed Timeslot Event should relate, in-part, to the total number of hours of content submitted in that category, which ensures that shows in popular categories have as much repeat airings as shows in categories/themes with minimal submissions. Because the amount of content in a given theme/category can vary significantly over relatively short periods of time, Timeslot Themes can be grouped in pairs using the Timeslot Pairing submodule, which ensures more consistency in the daily schedule. In this manner, the total time allocated for the pair is consistent, while the distribution between the two paired themes can change.
Pairs are set up with a minimum of 2 hours, and the switch from the first to the second category in each pair must take place on the hour or half-hour, to improve the viewer experience. With the Open Media system, this information can be exported for Electronic Programming Guides and for dynamic interstitial content that announces the beginning and end of each theme/category slot.
FOLLOWING IS STILL DOM SPECIFIC
Following is the logic of the code which distributes time within each theme block pair.
-Calculate the total duration of content in each category annually.
The category with the most combined duration (most hours of content, not most shows) becomes "category1" and is paired with the shortest category (in DOM's case, "Category 12")
On the Premium Channel, blocks are divvyd up as such:
Because we are on the premium channel, and we only want to show videos above average for that category, we ask.
-what is the ratio of
"the combined duration of all content in category 1 with a Score/rating above "R"(The variable defined in the bayesian equasion below)"
to
"the combined duration of all content in category 12 with a score/rating above R"?
Being that this is a 2-hour slot, shared between the two categories, if the ratio is less than .25, the slot is split up 25/75 with (in this case) 30 mins allotted to Cat1 and 90mins allotted to cat2. If the ratio is between .25 and .75, the slot is split in half, 60-mins each. If the ratio is over .75, the slot is split up with 90mins allotted to cat1 and 30mins allotted to cat b.
Then, in scheduling the "Featured" day for that group/pair, we take the top-rated show in cat 1.
Is it marked for late-night airing? If yes, place it first in the 11pm slot for that day.
If no, determine the remaining time allotted for cat1 in the first time slot (taking into account anything that is already programmed in the princeton server). Is the available time is greater than show's duration?
If yes, schedule the show at the first available slot.
If no, skip the show.
Do the same for the second rated show in that category, and so on.
In filling a block, the system should not stray from the selected category, and can be set to use shows listing the category as a "secondary" category, or based on other metadata, repeat shows, or even switch to continuity files.
Any open time on the basic channel 56 can be autoscheduled following the same rules, but without the requirement that the rating is above "R", so whereas on 57 we start repeating shows once we hit shows with a rating below the average for the category, on 56 we don't start repeating until we run out of shows.