Interactive television program guide system with local advertisements

a technology of interactive television and local advertisements, applied in the field of interactive television program guides, can solve the problem that users will not be provided with as much useful local advertising information as might otherwise be possibl

US20060288366A1Inactive Publication Date: 2006-12-21ROVI GUIDES INC
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Patent Information

Authority / Receiving Office
US · United States
Current Assignee / Owner
Publication Date
2006-12-21
Estimated Expiration
Not applicable · inactive patent

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Abstract

A program guide system is provided in which local advertisements may be distributed to interactive television program guides implemented on the user television equipment associated with a television distribution facility such as a cable system headend. The local advertisements contain information that is directed toward the particular users in a local area. The local advertisements may be displayed when a user selects a related global advertisement. The local advertisements may also be displayed automatically by cycling global advertisements and local advertisements. Advertisements may be blocked based on content or time shifted. Policies regarding advertisement usage may be enforced.
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Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] This invention relates to interactive television program guides, and more particularly, to techniques for providing local advertising with such interactive television program guides.

[0002] Passive television program guides provide a scrolling or paged list of television program listings on a dedicated television channel. A television user may view the television program listings by tuning to the dedicated channel. The upper portion of a passive program guide display may be used to display advertising videos and associated text descriptions. The content of the text descriptions may be targeted toward particular regions.

[0003] Interactive television program guides allow television users to perform more advanced operations, such as displaying program listings in formats that are selected by the user, genre searching, pay-per-view ordering, etc. Interactive program guides are typically implemented on microprocessor-based set-top boxes. Program listin...

Examples

Embodiment Construction

[0034] A conventional passive television program guide system 10 is shown in FIG. 1. Data for television program listings such as channel, title, and broadcast time information is stored in a program listings database 12 in a data transmission facility 14. Promotional videos are stored in promotional videos database 16. Advertising text associated with the promotional videos is stored in regional advertising text database 18. The promotional videos are distributed nationally via satellite in a global video stream. The associated advertising text is distributed in a global data stream. Program listings are also distributed in a global data stream.

[0035] The global video and data streams are transmitted to multiple cable system headends 20. The cable system headends are typically in different geographic regions. The cable system headend in each region contains a computer that extracts the advertising text appropriate for that region and the television program listings for the region....