FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to content delivery and playback methods and apparatus and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus that support delivery of targeted advertising content communicated via a secondary communications channel that is different from a communications channel used for delivery of programming content.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Advertising is an important source of revenue for cable companies, satellite companies and/or other content distributers. Advertisers are often willing to pay a premium if they are able to target their advertisements to a particular audience likely to be interested in their product and/or which is considered a desirable audience to target for a particular reason, e.g., because of their income level, age, location, sex or other attributes/characteristics.

In addition to providing content distributers a chance to sell targeted advertising, content distributers, e.g., cable service providers, internet service providers, etc., can find targeted advertising useful in up selling their own offerings by presenting advertisements for products which are upgrades to services and/or plans which a service subscriber has while avoiding presenting advertisements for services to which a subscriber already subscribes.

Delivery of advertisement content to users watching broadcast or multicast programming content is common. In various systems the advertisements are delivered in the same broadcast signal or transport stream that carries the programming content, e.g., advertising content is interjected with the actual programming content within a broadcast or multicast stream. It is assumed that a users receiving the broadcast or multicast content will view the advertisements transmitted with the content. However, in the case of conventional over the air broadcasts and other broadcast transmission whether they be over a cable network or another communications channel, there is often no way to know whether a particular broadcast and the advertising content communicated as part of the broadcast is being output and viewed by a user of a set top box or other playback device.

Advertisers and broadcasters of programming content are always looking out for ways to improve targeting of advertisements based on various factors so that advertising content that is relevant or is of interest to the users can be delivered. Unfortunately, in the case of broadcast and multicast content, there is little an advertiser can do. In some cases advertisements may be included in the broadcast on a regional or geographic basis but this allows for relatively limited targeting and does not allow for targeting down to the level of an individual household or user.

It should be appreciated that it would be desirable if a way could be developed to allow for targeted advertisements to be delivered to a household or individual playback device even when the playback device is receiving and playing broadcast or multicast content.

In order to target relevant advertising content to customers it is important for the advertisers and service providers to understand factors that are helpful in targeting advertisements suitable for individual customers or group of customers. For example, to send customized or selected advertising content to a customer watching some programming content, it is desirable that the service provider understand what programming content the user is currently watching and/or type of content that the user normally watches as personal information about the user or household such as age, sex, income level, etc.

Unfortunately, in broadcast delivery systems, the service provider, e.g., broadcaster, normally does not have the capability to track what a customer is currently watching and/or to which channel the customer premise device is tuned to. This is because the customer's device can simply tune to a channel and output the channel without reporting anything back to the broadcast or service provider. This is particularly the case in over the air broadcasts, analog broadcasts and/or other transmissions where there may not be a need or requirement for the user playback device to report back output/viewing information to the broadcaster.

In view of the above discussion, it should be appreciated that there is a need for developing methods and/or apparatus which would allow the service provider to obtain viewership information for subscribers that receive broadcast or multicast programming content. There is also a need for methods and/or apparatus for obtaining user information which can be used in targeting advertisements. There is also a need for methods and/or apparatus which would allow targeted advertisements to be delivered and displayed to a user, e.g., in real time, while a program is being output to the user.

SUMMARY

Methods and apparatus relating to the supply of targeted advertisements to user devices receiving broadcast or multicast content are described. In addition methods and apparatus for obtaining information which can be used to target advertisements to a viewer of broadcast or multicast content are described.

The methods and apparatus of the present invention are well suited for systems where content is broadcast or multicast to a plurality of user devices, e.g., set top boxes, TVs or other devices, with advertisements included in the content delivered via a first communications channel, e.g., a broadcast communications channel. Viewing information, e.g., information indicating the tuning of a customer premise device to a channel and/or the outputting of program content is reported to a headend or other device. While such information is normally not available, in accordance with various embodiments the customer premise device is configured to report such information thereby providing a device such as a server, information which can be used to target advertisements for the customer premise and/or specific user device known to be outputting program content.

One or more targeted advertisements are delivered to a customer premise device via a secondary channel that is different from a primary communications channel. In some embodiments the secondary channel is a unicast IP delivery channel with content being directed, e.g., addressed to an individual customer premise or customer premise device. Thus, while the user selected program content may be delivered via a broadcast channel or multicast channel, target advertisements are delivered via a unicast IP channel in at least some embodiments.

The customer premise device outputs and/or records user selected program content delivered via the first communications channel, e.g., broadcast or multicast channel.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention a customer premise device receiving programming content via the first channel, e.g., a broadcast or multicast digital channel, provides information that can be utilized by the service provider and/or a third party in targeting relevant advertising content to the customer premise device. In various embodiments such information includes information regarding the content being output, e.g., viewed by the customer, time of viewing, customer preferences and/or past viewing history and other related information. The customer premise device, e.g., set top box, may and in some embodiments does supply, age, sex, income level and/or other demographic or personal information corresponding to the user of the customer premise device that may be useful for purposes of ad targeting. In some embodiments the user information is entered into the customer premise device and supplied with the program viewing information to the server or headend device. In such embodiments the user has control over what information is provided for ad targeting purposes. In other embodiments the service provider, e.g., cable network headend operator, stores and supplies to an advertising system user information along with information obtained from the customer premise device indicating what broadcast or multicast content is being viewed and/or recorded.

Having received such information, e.g., from individual customer premise devices, the service provider system and/or authorized advertising party server can select targeted advertising content well suited for individual customers corresponding to the specific customer premise devices providing such information.

In various embodiments the targeted advertising content is provided to one or more customer premise devices via a secondary communications channel that is different from the communications channel over which the programming content was provided. In some embodiments the targeted (alternative) advertising content is communicated via a unicast Internet Protocol (IP) packet stream over the second communications channel. In various embodiments the customer device, e.g., set top box, monitors the content received on the first, e.g., broadcast channel to detect an upcoming commercial break. While content corresponding to the program being viewed is received on the first communications channel, alternative advertising content, e.g., targeted advertising content, may and sometimes will be received via the second communications channel, e.g., the unicast IP communications channel.

Thus the content received via the first channel is monitored to detect upcoming commercial breaks. An upcoming commercial break may be indicated by private data included in the content stream, one or more queue tones or through various other techniques.

When an upcoming commercial break is detected, a signal may be sent to a headend device and or an advertisement (ad) server to indicate that the user is viewing and/or recording the content being received on the broadcast channel providing the device an opportunity to communicate an alternative advertisement to the customer premise device via the second communications channel.

Alternatively in some embodiments a notification is provided when a user tunes to a program channel and the headend or advertising server assumes the user remains tuned to that channel for a period of time, e.g., the known duration of the program being supplied to the customer premise device via the first channel. In one such embodiment the ad server stores information about when advertisements occur in the program which has been identified as being received by a user device and send alternative advertisements for a period of time, e.g., the duration of the program, without the need for the customer premise device to report on upcoming commercial breaks. Such an embodiment is efficient in that it requires very little upstream communication from individual customer devices. While alternative advertisements may be provided for the duration of a program via a unicast stream, in other embodiments user inactivity is detected by the customer premise device, e.g., a failure to receive a control signal from a remote control for a predetermined period of time, and triggers the sending of a sleep state indicator to the headend or ad server causing the headend device or ad server to cease the unicast transmission of alternative ads to the customer premise device. In this way headend to customer device unicast transmission resources may be used efficiently as well as customer premise device to headend communications resources.

During a commercial break which occurs on the first channel, the customer device outputs the received alternative advertising content communicated via the secondary communications channel rather than outputting advertising content received via the first, e.g., broadcast, communications channel.

Program content received via the first communications channel may, and in some embodiments is recorded. Alternative advertising content may, and in some embodiments is, recorded in place of broadcast advertisements which were received with the programming content. In some embodiments both advertising and program content received via the first communications channel and advertising content received via the second communications channel is received and recorded, e.g., in the same program file. Advertising content received via the second program channel may include time constraints, e.g., the alternative ads may be intended to be displayed for a limited period of time relative to the original date of the broadcast or multicast program into which it was intended to be inserted in the place of an advertisement included in the original broadcast or multicast program. For example an advertisement may be for a limited time offer in which case there would be no reason to display the advertisement after the limited time of the offer has expired.

In at least some embodiments where original broadcast or multicast ad content is recorded in addition to alternative ad content communicated via a second communications channel, the original broadcast or multicast advertisement is displayed rather than the alternative ad content when a playback constraint associated with the alternative advertisement is not satisfied.

Normally alternative advertisements which are output during the delivery time period of a program will be displayed if the recorded content is played back with a time period that is in close proximity to the original broadcast time, e.g., within a time period from the broadcast time, at least as long as the original program. This ensures that a viewer rewinding or pausing a program will likely see the alternative advertisement at least during the initial viewing and any rewinding or repeat playback occurring during the initial viewing. This avoids, by making sure that the same advertisement is displayed, the possibly unsettling effect a user may encounter from a different ad being displayed during a pause or rewind operation that may result in a repeat playback of a portion of a broadcast program close to the initial air time if such a playback constraint was not implemented.

While various embodiments have been discussed in the summary above, it should be appreciated that not necessarily all embodiments include the same features and some of the features described above are not necessary but can be desirable in some embodiments. Numerous additional features, embodiments and benefits of various embodiments are discussed in the detailed description which follows.

It should be appreciated that numerous additional variations and embodiments are possible and remain within the scope of the invention.

Various additional features, embodiments and advantages of the present invention are discussed in the detailed description which follows.

