[BC] PPM Gaming has started

[Steve Ordinetz]

> More stations are airing longer blocks of ad-free programming. One
> Boston station has given back three hours a day. What does it mean
> for dollars and ratings? Obviously, they're going to be giving up
> some revenue. But some programmers think it could have a positive
> effect on ratings in the long run. Especially in a PPM world.
>

What's to stop stations from pre-encoding locally-produced spots that are
distributed to other stations in the market, thus getting credit every
time this spot airs on a competitor?  Or is this practice relatively rare
in markets large enough to use PPMs?

I'm sure there are penalties for doing this, but how detectable would it
be if someone tried it?