[lsv1]

This practice is used in almost every industry with finite inventory by Revenue Management teams where there is opportunity to pre-empt a booking, slot, or (where I am most familiar) a tv spot.

I recall working for television systems management and having a revenue and yield optimization consultant from the airline industry present to our company with methods we could use to increased revenue by booking even more spots than we had and either pre-empting more low value TV spots with automatic optimization and moving of the spots, or simply taking more time away from marketing or promotional ads from the network.

Most of the practices recommended by this consultant we had already implemented, but there were some really neat recommendations specifically from the airline industry in order to maximize revenue, most of them revolved around overbooking. Eligible TV spots would be automatically moved forward (front-loaded) into weekly rotation selling options (groups of program sold under the same name and price).

I could go on forever, but I suppose as a general comment regarding revenue management and yield optimization there is nothing which surprises me about these practices.

[skywhopper]

I think the important thing here is just honesty in the business practice. Presumably you were upfront with your clients about what they were actually purchasing and what the risks were. The article here is not about overselling per se but about lying about it.