Interactive video distribution systems – Program – message – or commercial insertion or substitution – Based on demographics or geographical area
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-21
2002-11-05
Faile, Andrew (Department: 2611)
Interactive video distribution systems
Program, message, or commercial insertion or substitution
Based on demographics or geographical area
C725S036000, C725S046000, C725S061000, C725S032000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06477704
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to media delivery methods, and more particularly to a method of gathering and utilizing demographic information from a request-based media delivery method.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An ongoing difficulty in delivering media content is matching the interests and preferences of the audience with the needs and objectives of the sponsors. Audience members often view the sponsors' commercials as wasted time between music, sports, news or commentary. Conversely, sponsors' view the music, sports, news or commentary as wasted time between the broadcast of their commercials. Audience members want to see and hear content that matches their tastes and sponsors want to reach audience members that are most apt to purchase their products and services. However, determining the demographics of audience members has been traditionally difficult to achieve with acceptable precision and accuracy.
Another problem with calculating demographics is the dynamic nature of audience groups. For example, the demographics for a particular radio station may change depending on the hour of the day or the day of the week. Students in school may not be permitted to listen to the radio during classroom instruction. Therefore, during school hours, the number of younger listeners may drop while the number of older listeners who tune in during work may rise. Likewise, during the weekend when students are not in school, the number of younger listeners may be much higher than at the same time of day on a school day. This shift in demographics is important to sponsors so they may reach their intended audience while that audience is tuned in.
Another problem with delivering media content is the significant overhead required to operate the enterprise. A great deal of the operations are repetitious in nature, yet most broadcast entities must pay disc jockeys, support personnel, news anchors and the like significant salaries to provide such services.
Another problem with media delivery operations is that content providers, such as music companies, often have difficulty in determining their demographics from the limited information provided by current operations. For example, radio stations may provide the content providers with the number of requests they receive for a particular song. However, the radio stations typically take the request telephonically without inquiring as to the demographic information of the requestor such as age, gender, residential location, and the like. Therefore, content providers do not possess this demographic information which may be used to further their marketing efforts in other settings such as retail or online sales.
Consequently, there is a need in the art to provide audience members with a meaningful opportunity to select the media content they wish to see and hear.
There is a further need in the art to provide broadcast entities with a efficient and reliable broadcast method with greatly reduced operating costs.
There is a further need in the art to provide sponsors with demographic information on the audience of the broadcast entities in order to target the appropriate product or service to those audience members.
There is a further need in the art to provide content providers with demographic information on the relative popularity of their content.
However, in view of the prior art in at the time the present invention was made, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in the pertinent art how the identified needs could be fulfilled.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The above and other objects of the invention are achieved in the embodiments described herein by a method of delivering media content comprising the steps of creating a membership database, obtaining requests for content from individuals registered in the database, broadcasting the most requested content and analyzing the demographic information of the individuals to associate and target advertising and information dissemination.
Creating the membership database comprises the steps of obtaining an array of demographic information from an individual. This array may include such variables as age, sex, residential location by zip code, and income level. It is preferable that this information be kept confidential and that the individual entering the information understand the confidentiality measures to insure an open and truthful disclosure of such demographic information. Once the array of demographic information is assembled for the individual, a unique membership ID is assigned to that individual. The unique membership ID may include a password to insure the validity of its use. The unique membership ID is associated with the array of demographic information for that user and stored in a membership database.
The demographic information may be gathered by a number of mediums. In one embodiment of the invention, the demographic information is obtained by telephonic means comprising the steps of accepting an incoming telephone call from a telephone caller and prompting the caller to relay an array of demographic information. For example, a telephone control system prompts the user for their age. The caller then enters in their age by depressing the corresponding numerals on a touch-tone telephone. The telephone produces dual-tone multi-frequency signals (“DTMF”) which are interpreted by the telephone control system and stored in the membership database. A unique membership ID may then be read back to the caller by voice synthesis.
An alternative method of gathering the demographic information utilizes a data network connection such as the Internet. One or more form-based interfaces are enabled on a data network. The interface may be a propriety client-server model or a standardized interface such as HTML used on the World Wide Web. A network user accesses the interface is prompted for an array of demographic information. Once the network user posts his or her entries, a membership ID is transmitted to the network user by electronic mail.
Once an individual's demographic information is obtained and a method of identifying the individual is established from the unique membership ID, the next step is to permit the individual to select the media content they wish to see or hear. The media content may include audio broadcasts of music, weather, news, or sports. It may also include delivering video segments such as movies, music videos, weather broadcasts or educational videos. The delivery may be from a traditional radio frequency transmission such as radio, or may include alternative mediums such as satellite, cellular, or data communication pathways. The delivery may take place on a closed, private network or via an open network such as the Internet.
Obtaining a request for media content comprises the steps of identifying the individual from the unique membership ID and prompting the individual for the selection of a media segment from a catalog database. The catalog database is a collection of available media content in digital form. For example, audio content may be stored in MP3, WAV, or other digital audio formats. Video segments may be stored as AVI, MPEG or the like. By storing the media content in digital format, a plurality of individual media segments may be later assembled into a seamless broadcast.
Once the individual has selected a media segment from a catalog database, the next step is associating the media segment and the individual's array of demographic information in a request database. This association will be analyzed to determine a correlation between the individual's array of demographic information and the type of media content that individual prefers.
Broadcasting the media content comprising the first step of first accessing the request database. It is anticipated that a plurality of requests will exist for the same media segment. A predetermined formula is applied to the information in the request database to determine which of the most requested media segments are assembled into a play list. The predetermined formula ma
Faile Andrew
Hopen Anton J.
Smith & Hopen , PA
Tran Hai V.
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