Micro-auction on television for the selection of commercials

A system for presenting a commercial in a time slot to a viewer, said system comprising:

• at least one source of one or more commercials, the source providing each said commercial having an agent associated therewith, the agent for each commercial configured to place a bid for the time slot on behalf of the associated commercial;
• a receiver operatively coupled with a display device, said receiver configured to receive each commercial and associated agent;
• and
• a processor operatively coupled with the receiver, the processor capable of
• executing instructions encoded by the agent associated with each commercial to determine the bid to be placed for the time slot;
• auctioning the time slot to the one or more commercials provided to the receiver;
• selecting the commercial having the agent which placed a winning bid;
• and
• displaying the selected commercial on the display device during the time slot.

A method of presenting a commercial in a time slot to a viewer, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing one or more commercials to a receiver operatively coupled with a display device, each commercial having an agent associated therewith, the agent for each commercial configured to place a bid for the time slot on behalf of the associated commercial;
• maintaining a profile database to store data related to local viewer preferences;
• allowing the agent for at least one commercial to access the local viewer preference related data in the profile database, the agent using the accessed local viewer preference related data to determine the bid to be placed for the time slot;
• auctioning the time slot to the one or more commercials provided to the receiver;
• selecting the commercial having the agent which placed a winning bid;
• displaying the selected commercial on the display device during the time slot;
• and
• storing information related to the commercial having the agent which placed the winning bid in a vault.