System and methods for selecting television advertisements for a set-top box requesting an advertisement without knowing what program or channel is being watched

摘要

A computer system automatically identifies, in response to receipt of first electronic data indicating selected advertisements are desired for a set-top box, certain television programs/channels that permit or desire selected advertisements, and automatically makes available to a device a set of selected television advertisements. The programs/channels are identified using second electronic data. The programs/channels are available for viewing in a time slot during which the first electronic data was received. Each selected advertisement corresponds to an identified television program/channel. The device has access to third electronic data indicating which program/channel is currently being presented via the set-top box, so that a selected television advertisement can be presented via the set- top box while the corresponding program/channel is being presented. The computer system selects and makes available the first set of television advertisements without access to the third electronic data.