Subscription television system and terminal for enabling simultaneous display of multiple services

A subscription television system comprising a headend for transmitting a broadband television signal and at least one subscriber terminal remote from said headend for receiving the broadband television signal via a distribution system, wherein:

• said headend comprises:
• a video combiner for combining a plurality of video signals, each corresponding to a different video program, to produce a composite video signal;
• circuitry for inserting data streams into said composite video signal, each data stream corresponding to a different data service;
• and
• circuitry for modulating the composite video signal, including the data streams inserted therein, onto a channel of the broadband television signal, the broadband television signal being transmitted to said at least one subscriber terminal;
• and
• said at least one subscriber terminal comprising:
• a selector for selecting a virtual channel from a plurality of virtual channels, each said virtual channel representative of a different combination of a video program and a data service;
• control signal generating means, responsive to the selected virtual channel, for generating tuning control signals, data extraction control signals, and video program control signals corresponding to the selected virtual channel;
• a tuner, responsive to said tuning control signals, for tuning to the channel of the broadband television signal carrying the composite video signal;
• processing circuitry for processing the composite video signal received from said tuner, said processor circuitry including extracting means for extracting from said composite video signal a data stream determined from said data extraction control signals;
• and
• an on-screen display control, responsive to said video program control signals, for generating a video output display signal from said extracted data stream and said processed composite video signal to enable simultaneous display of the data service corresponding to said extracted data stream in a first continuous picture portion and the video program corresponding to the selected virtual channel in a second contiguous picture portion different from the first contiguous picture portion.