System and method for selling presentation times in a digital media stream

• US 20050038666A1
• Filed: 08/14/2003
• Published: 02/17/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: New RCI Holdings Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Regal CineMedia Corporation (Cineworld Group PLC)
• Inventors: Agee, Joseph, Theiste, Christopher H.
• Granted Patent: US 9,195,958 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1.100
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A method for automatically developing a proposal of advertising segments from a plurality of available advertising segments offered by an owner of a media presentation containing the advertising segments. A plurality of representations of available advertising segments are stored, and actual and/or speculative presentation characteristics are associated to each of the plurality of representations. A proposal is developed comprising a subset of the representations based on media buyer specified variables. The proposal is validated by ensuring that the speculative characteristics are satisfied upon creation of the media presentation containing segments purchased by the media buyer.

Claims

1. A method for scheduling presentations within a media stream comprising:

defining an inventory of media segments within the media stream by speculatively assigning characteristics to media spots;

determining a media buyer'"'"'s presentation criteria for presentation of a particular content item; and

generating a proposal to a media buyer wherein the proposal identifies a portion of the inventory of media slots selected to satisfy the media buyer'"'"'s presentation criteria, wherein the identified portion of the inventory includes at least one speculatively defined media segment.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the act of defining an inventory is based upon expected availability of content items within the media stream that will satisfy certain criteria.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the act of assigning is performed before a specific content item is assigned to a particular media segment.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

forming a contract wherein the media buyer accepts at least some of the media segments and an owner of the inventory agrees to present the media buyer'"'"'s content in the accepted media segments according to the media buyer'"'"'s presentation criteria.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the proposal comprises pricing information for each inventory item included in the proposal.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising scheduling the media buyer'"'"'s content items by assigning particular content items to particular inventory items.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising scheduling presentation of subsequent content items within the media stream in a manner that satisfies the media buyer'"'"'s presentation criteria.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising re-ordering the scheduled content items in response to addition of subsequent content items such that the re-ordered schedule satisfies the media buyer'"'"'s presentation criteria.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the media stream comprises a rated movie and the speculatively assigned characteristics comprise probable movie rating.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

reviewing historical information to determine historical presentation characteristics of previously played media streams;

using the historical presentation characteristics to predict the speculative presentation characteristics.

11. A system for transacting presentation of content items within a media stream, the media stream comprising a plurality of media segments, the system comprising:

a scheduling mechanism operable to schedule presentation of particular content items at times and locations based upon presentation criteria associated with the particular content items;

a proposal interface coupled to the scheduling mechanism to determine an inventory of media segments within the media stream, characteristics of content items scheduled in the media stream, and speculative characteristics of media segments within the media stream that have not yet been scheduled; and

processes for selecting media segments with particular characteristics, including speculative characteristics, that satisfy a media buyer'"'"'s presentation criteria.

12. The system of claim 11 further comprising:

presentation mechanisms at the plurality of distributed presentation locations coupled to read schedule information, select content items in response to the schedule information, and present the selected content items to form the media stream, wherein the scheduling mechanism distributes schedule information to the plurality of distributed presentation locations.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the schedule information is distributed independently from the content items.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the proposal interface operates automatically.

15. The system of claim 11 wherein the proposal interface operates manually.

16. The system of claim 11 wherein the media stream comprises a movie.

17. The system of claim 11 wherein at least some of the segments comprises advertisements.

18. A method for automatically developing a proposal of presentation segments from an inventory of available presentation segments, the method comprising:

receiving a specification including a media buyer'"'"'s presentation criteria;

developing a first set of available segments based upon known presentation characteristics of the first set of available segments;

developing a second set of available segments based upon speculative presentation characteristics of the second set of available segments;

developing a proposal of available segments from the first and second sets of available spots.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein each of the available segments in the proposal respectively includes a cost per segment.

20. A method as defined in claim 18 wherein presentation criteria specify at least one presentation characteristic and the first set and second set of segments have the specified presentation characteristic.

21. A method as defined in claim 18 wherein the presentation characteristic comprises at least one of the group consisting of:

a movie rating, a presentation time, a maximum number of segments within the presentation, a minimum number of segments within the media stream, a media supplier identification, a segment position within the presentation, audience size, and an audience demographic characteristic.

22. A method for automatically developing a proposal of advertising segments from a plurality of available advertising segments offered by an owner of a media presentation containing the advertising segments, the method comprising the steps of:

storing a plurality of representations of available advertising segments;

associating actual and/or speculative presentation characteristics to each of the plurality of representations of available advertising segments; and

developing a proposal comprising a subset of the representations based on media buyer specified variables.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising:

allowing a buyer to select from amongst the representations within the proposal; and

developing a presentation package by assigning specific content items to the representations selected by the buyer.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising:

validating the package by ensuring that the speculative characteristics are satisfied upon creation of the media presentation containing segments purchased by the media buyer.

25. A proposal machine comprising:

an interface to a media scheduling database for receiving inventory information about an inventory of segments within one or more media streams, wherein the inventory information includes actual and speculative presentation characteristics of the segments;

an interface for receiving information about a media buyer'"'"'s presentation requirements;

processes for determining a set of the segments from the scheduling database that satisfy the media buyer'"'"'s presentation requirements based on the actual and speculative presentation characteristics of the segments; and

processes for generating a proposal to the media buyer identifying the determined set of segments.

26. A method for performing a contract for the presentation of media content items, the method comprising:

determining presentation criteria for each media content item from the contract;

scheduling the media content item for presentation in a manner that is expected to satisfy the presentation criteria;

monitoring actual presentation characteristics of the content item; and

determining whether the actual presentation characteristics satisfied the presentation criteria.

27. The method of claim 26 further comprising:

when it is determined that the actual presentation did not satisfy the presentation criteria, modifying the contract in a manner that will cause subsequent presentations of the content item to satisfy the presentation criteria.

28. The method of claim 26 further comprising:

when it is determined that the actual presentation did not satisfy the presentation criteria, modifying the contract in a manner that enables the actual presentation to satisfy the presentation criteria.

29. The method of claim 26 wherein the acts of monitoring and determining are performed on a schedule that is based at least in part on a duration of the contract.

30. The method of claim 26 wherein the acts of monitoring and determining are performed based at least in part on a magnitude of variance between the contract-specified presentation criteria and the actual presentation characteristics.