Virtual communal viewing of television content

A system, comprising:

• a user interface that enables establishing a viewing party that includes a plurality of users to view synchronized content;
• and
• a head end controller configured to:
• receive viewing party characteristics associated with the viewing party,
• use the received viewing party characteristics to select a piece of content relevant to the plurality of viewers of the viewing party, and
• synchronize display of the selected piece of content at set-top boxes (STBs) of corresponding viewers in the viewing party, wherein control of the synchronously displayed piece of content is provided to one or more viewers within the viewing party.

A non-transitory computer-readable device having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, cause the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:

• establishing a viewing party to view synchronized content, the viewing party including a plurality of viewers;
• receiving viewing party characteristics associated with the viewing party;
• using the received viewing party characteristics to select a piece of content relevant to the plurality of viewers of the viewing party;
• and
• synchronizing display of the selected piece of content at set-top boxes of corresponding viewers in the viewing party, wherein control of the synchronously displayed piece of content is provided to one or more viewers within the viewing party.