Interactive television program guide system for determining user values for demographic categories

摘要

An interactive television program guide system for determining user input values for demographic categories is provided. The system includes user television equipment having a receiver for receiving program guide information for the interactive television program guide, a user input receiver for receiving user input from user interface, such as a remote control, a microprocessor which utilizes the user input received to determine user values for demographic categories, and memory for storing the user values determined. In one illustrative use of the system for targeting advertisements to a user of the interactive television program guide, the receiver also receives advertisements, where the advertisements have preselected values for specified demographic categories. The user television equipment, preferably using microprocessor, compares the preselected values for the specified demographic categories associated with the advertisements with values of corresponding demographic categories stored in memory to determine which advertisements should be displayed. Those advertisements determined to be displayable based upon the comparison are then displayed.

主权项

1. A method for targeting advertisements to a user of an interactive system, the method comprising:
receiving a user input associated with a video program; determining a type of function of a plurality of different types of functions of the interactive system that the user input requested for the video program, wherein each of the plurality of different types of functions is configured to perform a different type of function of the interactive system with respect to the video program; determining at least one demographic value associated with the video program; calculating, using a processor, a current user demographic value associated with the user, based on the determined type of function and the at least one demographic value associated with the video program; comparing the current user demographic value to a demographic criterion associated with an advertisement; and selecting the advertisement if the current user demographic value meets the demographic criterion associated with the advertisement.