Television distribution system for signal substitution
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A consumer response analysis system comprising:
- a targetable television system including a head end, a signal distribution arrangement and a plurality of television receivers for viewing by consumers, said head end including circuitry for transmitting normal television program signals and substitute television program signals on a plurality of distribution trunks connected by the signal distribution arrangement to said plurality of television receivers, each television receiver being connected to the plurality of distribution trunks preselected so that the receivers connected to at least one of the distribution trunks demographically represents the community for market research purposes, the head end including signal distribution circuitry for receiving the normal television program signals and the substitute television program signal and for combining the received channel signals into spectrums of channels on the plurality of distribution trunks, the spectrum of channels on less than all of the plurality of distribution trunks including the substitute television program signal;
a plurality of product sales collection units each for collecting information representing purchases by the consumers at one of a plurality of stores and for generating product identifying signals identifying the products purchased and the sales collection unit collecting the information, each sales collection unit predominately collecting purchase information by consumers viewing receivers connected to the Same distribution trunk, whereby the system is closed between the targetable television system and the product sales collection units by the acts of the consumers viewing the programs presented on the respective television receivers and shopping in a store including a sales collection unit; and
a market research computer system including data for identifying the particular sales collection units associated with each of the distribution trunks and responding to said transaction response signals to provide an indication of consumer behavior in response to said normal and substitute programs.
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Abstract
A cable television distribution system in which the head end substitutes different channels for a plurality of separated geographic zones. The head end creates a plurality of channel spectrums and transmits the spectrums on distribution trunks such that a different spectrum may be present on each distribution trunk. The spectrums on the distribution trunks are connected to zones of the viewer community which have been selected for market research purposes on the basis of demographics. Product sales collection units are provided at stores throughout the community served by the cable television distribution to collect consumer purchase data for market research purposes.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. A consumer response analysis system comprising:
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a targetable television system including a head end, a signal distribution arrangement and a plurality of television receivers for viewing by consumers, said head end including circuitry for transmitting normal television program signals and substitute television program signals on a plurality of distribution trunks connected by the signal distribution arrangement to said plurality of television receivers, each television receiver being connected to the plurality of distribution trunks preselected so that the receivers connected to at least one of the distribution trunks demographically represents the community for market research purposes, the head end including signal distribution circuitry for receiving the normal television program signals and the substitute television program signal and for combining the received channel signals into spectrums of channels on the plurality of distribution trunks, the spectrum of channels on less than all of the plurality of distribution trunks including the substitute television program signal; a plurality of product sales collection units each for collecting information representing purchases by the consumers at one of a plurality of stores and for generating product identifying signals identifying the products purchased and the sales collection unit collecting the information, each sales collection unit predominately collecting purchase information by consumers viewing receivers connected to the Same distribution trunk, whereby the system is closed between the targetable television system and the product sales collection units by the acts of the consumers viewing the programs presented on the respective television receivers and shopping in a store including a sales collection unit; and a market research computer system including data for identifying the particular sales collection units associated with each of the distribution trunks and responding to said transaction response signals to provide an indication of consumer behavior in response to said normal and substitute programs. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A method for use in a consumer response analyzing system comprising apparatus for distributing television programming to a plurality of zones in a community of consumers and consumer data collection points located in stores in the zones for collecting consumer purchase data, the method comprising:
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associating one of the zones with each consumer data collection point, said association, being made when a majority of purchases at a particular data collection point are made by consumers from one of the zones; assigning each consumer data collection point aunique identifying address; presenting television programming to the community so that a substitute program is presented to the consumers in a first set of zones and normal programming is presented to consumers in a second set of zones; accumulating consumer purchase data from the consumer data collection points along with the identifying address of each consumer data collection point providing accumulated consumer purchase data; and analyzing the collected data of the consumer data collection points identified as being associated with a zone receiving the substitute program and the collected data identified as being associated with a zone receiving the normal programming to identify the market significance of the substitute programming. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8)
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9. A television distribution and analysis system for delivering a plurality of channel signals in separated TV channels to a plurality of cable television subscribers residing in a geographic area comprising:
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a plurality of normal channel signal sources for producing normal TV channel signals to be delivered to subscribers; a source of a substitute channel signal to be substituted for at least one normal channel signal; signal distribution circuitry for receiving the normal channel signals and the substitute channel signal and for combining the received channel signals into spectrums of channels on a plurality of distribution trunks, the spectrum of channels on less than all of the plurality of distribution trunks including the substitute channel signal; and apparatus for generating a plurality of substantially identical copies of the spectrum of channels of each distribution trunk; apparatus for connecting the substantially identical copies of the channel spectrum of each distribution trunk to different substantially contiguous zones of the geographic area; a plurality of customer purchase data collectors for collecting customer purchase data in stores of the geographic area, each customer purchase data collector representing purchases made by subscribers residing in one of the zones; and a data analysis computer system for accumulating customer purchase data from the data collectors and for analyzing the collected data to identify the market significance of the normal and substitute channel signals connected to the zones of the geographic area. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A method for use in a consumer response analyzing system comprising apparatus for distributing television to a plurality of substantially geographically contiguous zones in a community of consumers and a market research computer system, the method comprising:
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identifying a consumer parameter of consumers in the community and associating one of the zones of the community with the consumer parameters of a plurality of consumers;
storing in the market research computer system data representing the associations between consumer parameters and zones;presenting television programming to the community so that a substitute program is presented to the consumers in a first set of zones and normal programming is presented to consumers in a second set of zones, the presenting step being performed after the preceding data storing step; conducting a survey of a plurality of consumers throughout the community after the presenting step to identify their customer parameter and to identify consumer purchase data; and analyzing the survey identified data in the market research computer system to associate each consumer purchase data with one of the zones to identify the market significance of substitute programming. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24)
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Specification