Items of video content offered for viewing on a video-on-demand (VOD) platform of a digital TV service provider are each assigned a respective title and hierarchical address corresponding to hierarchically-arranged categories and subcategories within which the title for the video content is to be categorized. The title is listed in a location of an electronic program guide (EPG) using the same categories and subcategories as its hierarchical address. Any TV subscriber can access the EPG and navigate through its categories and subcategories to find a title for viewing on the TV. The EPG dynamically adjust its display listings of each level of categories, subcategories, and titles in order to minimize the number of remote control keypresses needed for a viewer to navigate to a title of interest. In one basic form, the EPG display is reordered by listing more frequently visited categories or subcategories first, and other less frequently visited categories or subcategories lower on the listing or out-of-sight on another page of the display.

An audience measurement service may monitor broadcasts in a region, ingesting closed captioning data, metadata, displayed text or logos, performing facial recognition on people, and/or generating audio/video fingerprints of broadcast content to create a database of content and associated keywords, along with times at which the content was broadcast. The audience measurement service may receive user search queries from a search provider and detect “spiking” queries. The audience measurement service may determine whether the spiking queries are related, contextually and temporally, to an item of content identified in the database, and infer that users generating the queries likely viewed the item of content. In some implementations, the audience measurement service may also infer that the users likely viewed other items of content (e.g. advertisements) displayed during the prior or subsequent few minutes on the same broadcast channel as the query-triggering item.

Example embodiments provide systems and methods for managing intelligent content queuing from a secondary device for content delivery to a primary device. A content queuing system on the secondary device generates and displays a playlist interface on the secondary device. A selection of a content item to be added to a playlist is received. The content queuing system determines that addition of the content item causes a live content item to overlap with an on-demand content item on the playlist. As a result, the content queuing system creates at least two segments for the on-demand content item. The live content item is positioned between the first and a second segment on the playlist. The first segment is scheduled to end at a start time of the live content item and the second segment is scheduled to begin at an ending time of the live content item.

A technique allows curating content such as videos to be specific to some event/theme. The technique allows creating an event in a calendar, and a backend system internally has an algorithm to pick the movies/TV shows based on viewing history.

In a method for delivering targeted television advertisements based on online behavior, IP addresses indicating online access devices and IP addresses indicating television set-top boxes are electronically associated for a multitude of users. Using user profile information derived from online activity from one of the online access IP addresses, a television advertisement is selected, such as by using behavioral targeting or demographic information, and automatically directed to the set-top box indicated by the set-top IP address associated with that online access IP address. Preferably neither the user profile information nor the electronic association of online access and set-top box IP addresses includes personally identifiable information.

An ad in a movie can be a static ad having a position in the movie that cannot be moved, or a dynamic ad having a position in the movie that can be changed. When a viewer wishes to skip a portion of the movie containing the ad, the playback system determines whether the ad is static or dynamic. If the ad is static, only the portion of the movie preceding the static ad can be skipped; the ad is unskippable. This technique is referred to as “bounceback” since the end of the skip bounces back to the start of the static ad. If the ad is dynamic, it is moved to after the end of the skip. This technique is referred to as “slip-ad” since the ad slips to later in the movie. When a movie has multiple ads, some can be static and some can be dynamic.

A control method according to one aspect of the technology is for use where a power supply of an apparatus having a first application and a second application is turned off during display of a screen of the second application and remains off, the first application being used to view a program, the second application being different from the first application. The control method includes: in a case where a power button is pressed, turning on the power supply of the apparatus to start simultaneously the second application and to display the screen thereof; and in a case where a channel selection button is pressed, turning on the power supply of the apparatus to start simultaneously the first application and to display an image of the program distributed on a selected channel.

Certain exemplary embodiments disclosed herein relate to systems and/or methods for distributing advertisements from a central advertisement network to one or more peripheral devices at a location via a local advertisement server. In certain exemplary embodiments, the local advertisement server within a location receives advertisements from the central advertisement network and rebroadcasts them to peripheral devices within that location. Advertising information may be tracked and reported, e.g., for accounting, revenue-sharing, and/or other purposes in certain exemplary embodiments. Thus, in certain exemplary embodiments, the distribution of advertisements is provided to peripherals via a non-web- and non-PC-dependent network. Moreover, in certain exemplary embodiments, reporting and advertising related communications are substantially bi-directional regardless of device type. Certain exemplary embodiments provide revenue sharing among some or all of the central advertising network provider, the proprietors of locations, operators tasked with maintaining the local ad server and/or the peripheral devices, etc.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to impute media consumption behavior are disclosed. An example system includes one or more media meters to obtain tuning data, one or more people meters to obtain viewing data, and one or more servers to, in response to a determination that a difference satisfies a first threshold, determine that a first subset of the tuning data associated with first panelist households having tuned to first media in a first area exhibits local bias, determine that a second subset of the viewing data associated with second panelist households having viewed the first media in the second area represents heavy viewing, and impute the second subset of the viewing data for the first subset of the tuning data in response to the second subset of the viewing data representing heavy viewing.

A moderator client device may add program information for multi-media content using interactive elements. The moderator client device may associate an interactive component with the multi-media content using the interactive elements on a moderator interface. An interactive program may be generated from the multi-media content, tags and time-codes, and the interactive component. A response to the interactive program may be received from a viewer client device based on an interaction of the user of the viewer client device with the interactive component. The response received from the viewer client device may be displayed simultaneously with the updated interactive program on the display of each of a plurality of viewer client devices.