Boosting factor for television content

• US 8,327,394 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2009
• Issued: 12/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Jin, Zhiying, Zhou, Haiyan, Wu, Shuai, Liu, Wenjie, Guo, Haosheng, Liu, Juhong
• Primary Examiner(s): Saltarelli, Dominic D
• Application Number:
  US12/627,524
• Publication Number:
  US 20110131594A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,100 Days
• Field of Search: 725/9
• US Class Current: 725/9
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/31 Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/66 for using the result on distributors' side
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/251 Learning process for intelligent management, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies details of learning user preferences for the retrieval of video data in a video database G06F16/739; computer systems using learning methods G06N3/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26603 for automatically generating descriptors from content, e.g. when it is not made available by its provider, using content analysis techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing

Abstract

A method includes receiving viewership data associated with television contents; calculating one or more local boosting factors and a national boosting factor for each of the television contents based on the viewership data; applying boosting factor assignment heuristics to the one or more local and national boosting factors for each of the television contents; selecting one or more boosting factors based the applying of the boosting factor assignment heuristics for each of the television contents; and publishing the one or more boosting factors to one or more television distribution sites for each of the television contents.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a television distribution device, viewership data associated with television contents;

calculating one or more local boosting factors and a national boosting factor for each of the television contents based on the viewership data;

applying boosting factor assignment heuristics to the one or more local boosting factors and the national boosting factor for each of the television contents;

selecting one or more boosting factors based on the applying of the boosting factor assignment heuristics; and

publishing for each of the television contents, the one or more boosting factors to one or more television distribution sites, wherein the boosting factor assignment heuristics include determining whether a maximum value of the one or more local boosting factors is more than a predetermined value that is greater than the national boosting factor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the boosting factor assignment heuristics include determining whether the maximum value of the one or more local boosting factors is greater than three times the national boosting factor, and if so, assigning the respective one or more local boosting factors as the one or more boosting factors for a particular television content.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the boosting factor assignment heuristics include determining whether the maximum value of the one or more local boosting factors is less than or equal to three times the national boosting factor, and if so, assigning the national boosting factor as the one or more boosting factors for a particular television content.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the viewership data includes local viewership data and national viewership data.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the calculating comprises:

determining a number of television contents associated with each local viewership data; and

determining a number of television contents associated with the national viewership data.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the calculating comprises:

determining a maximum value of viewership associated with a particular television content of each local viewership data and of the national viewership data; and

determining a minimum value of viewership associated with a particular television content of each local viewership data and of the national viewership data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more boosting factors correspond to a value representing a level of importance of a particular television content relative to other television contents.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting to customers the television contents based on boosting factors when the customers perform a search for television content or browse television content.

9. A network device comprising:

one or more memories to store instructions; and

one or more processors to execute the instructions in the one or more memories to;

receive viewership data associated with television contents;

calculate one or more local boosting factors and a national boosting factor for each of the television contents based on the viewership data, wherein the one or more local boosting factors correspond to one or more values representing a level of importance of a particular television content associated with one or more regional areas of a television distribution system, and the national boosting factor corresponds to a value representing a level of importance of the particular television content relative to an aggregate of the one or more regional areas;

apply boosting factor assignment heuristics to the one or more local boosting factors and the national boosting factor;

select the one or more local boosting factors or the national boosting factor as the level of importance of the particular television content for the one or more regional areas based on the applied boosting factor assignment heuristics; and

forward the one or more local boosting factors or the national boosting factor for the particular television content to one or more television distribution sites associated with the one or more regional areas, wherein the boosting factor assignment heuristics include determining whether a maximum value of the one or more local boosting factors is more than a predetermined value that is greater than the national boosting factor, and if so, selecting the respective one or more local boosting factors for the particular television content.

10. The network device of claim 9, wherein when calculating, the one or more processors are to execute the instructions to:

calculate using the expression

11. The network device of claim 9, wherein the viewership data includes one or more local viewership data and national viewership data for each television content, and wherein, when calculating the one or more local boosting factors and the national boosting factor, the one or more processors are to execute the instructions to:

determine a number of television content associated with the one or more local viewership data that is associated with the one or more regional areas; and

determine a number of television content associated with the national viewership data.

12. The network device of claim 11, wherein, when calculating the one or more local boosting factors and the national boosting factor, the one or more processors are to execute the instructions to:

determine a maximum value of viewership associated with a particular television content of each local viewership data and of the national viewership data; and

determine a minimum value of viewership associated with a particular television content of each local viewership data and of the national viewership data.

13. The network device of claim 11, wherein, when calculating the one or more local boosting factors and the national boosting factor, the one or more processors are to execute the instructions to:

select a ranking value for the particular television content associated with the one or more local boosting factors and the national boosting factor.

14. The network device of claim 11, wherein the one or more local viewership data is received from the one or more television distribution sites.

15. The network device of claim 9, wherein the one or more processors are to execute instructions to:

receive a boosting factor manually entered by a user, wherein the boosting factor corresponds to a value representing a level of importance for a selected television content; and

apply the boosting factor to the selected television content; and

publish the boosting factor to the one or more television distribution sites.

16. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media containing instructions executable by at least one processor, the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions for:

receiving viewership data associated with television contents watched by customers;

calculating one or more local boosting factors and a national boosting factor for each of the television contents, wherein each of the local boosting factors represents a level of importance of a particular television content associated with respective regional areas of a television distribution system, and the national boosting factor represents a level of importance of the particular television content relative to an aggregate of the respective regional areas;

applying boosting factor assignment information to the one or more local boosting factors and the national boosting factor;

selecting the one or more local boosting factors or the national boosting factor associated with the particular television content for the respective regional areas based on an outcome associated with the applying; and

publishing the one or more local boosting factors or the national boosting factor associated with the particular television content to one or more television distribution sites associated with respective regional areas, wherein the boosting factor assignment information includes a rule to determine whether a maximum value of the one or more local boosting factors is a predetermined value that is greater than the national boosting factor.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the instructions for selecting includes one or more instructions to select the national boosting factor for the respective regional areas when the maximum value of the one or more local boosting factors is not the predetermined value that is greater than the national boosting factor.

18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the instructions for calculating include instructions for utilizing the following expression: