A software architecture for managing applications at a television set-top terminal. An Application Programming Interface (API) provides an ITU-T X.731-based mechanism for monitoring and controlling the applications. Applications, such as a grogram guide, stock ticker or the like, are recovered at the terminal according to an associated locator. The applications are registered (205) and installed at the terminal, and a user is notified of the presence of the applications after registration thereof. The API (270) enables running, pausing, resuming and stopping of the applications. The API also enables the applications to advertise their respective states to other applications, such as alarm statuses (325), availability statuses (330), procedural statuses (335), operational states (310), administrative states (305), and usage states (315).
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