Method and System for Detecting and Responding to Changing of Media Channel

A method for detecting and responding to a change of channels, the method comprising:

• receiving into a computing system a plurality of query fingerprints representing media content rendered over time by a media presentation device, wherein, based on at least a portion of the received query fingerprints, the rendered media content has been identified as being a first channel of media content;
• comparing one or more of the received query fingerprints to a corresponding one or more reference fingerprints representing the first channel of media content;
• based on the comparing, determining a likelihood that the media content being rendered by the media presentation device is no longer the first channel of media content;
• and
• responsive to the determined likelihood that the media content being rendered by the media presentation device is no longer the first channel of media content, discontinuing a channel-specific action with respect to the rendering of the media content by the media presentation device.

A system comprising:

• a network communication interface;
• a processing unit;
• non-transitory data storage;
• and
• program instructions stored in the non-transitory data storage and executable by the processing unit to carry out operations including:
• receiving from a media presentation device, via the network communication interface, a query fingerprint stream representing media content being presented by the media presentation device, wherein the query fingerprint stream has been determined to represent a first channel,
• detecting a threshold mismatch between the received query fingerprint stream and a reference fingerprint stream representing the first channel, wherein the threshold mismatch indicates a likelihood that the media presentation device has transitioned from presenting the first channel to presenting a second channel, and
• responsive to detecting the threshold mismatch, changing an overlay on the presented media content, wherein changing the overlay involves removing superimposed content associated with the first channel.