Virtual personal channel in a television system

An apparatus for providing a customer of a television system, in addition to regular television channels, with virtual personal channel which being selected for a customer television receiver delivers a television program of the most personal interest automatically chosen among programs concurrently transmitted on all available physical channels of the system, said apparatus comprising:

• communication means at a television system headend for broadcasting descriptive and time/channel data of scheduled television programs prior to transmission of the programs, said descriptive and time/channel data formatted for computer analysis;
• means at customer end for receiving said descriptive and time/channel data formatted for computer analysis;
• means at customer end for storing customer profile data representing customer interests and preferences;
• program evaluation means at customer end coupled to said receiving means and to said storing means for processing said formatted descriptive data of scheduled television programs and providing evaluations of the television programs in respect to said customer profile data;
• and
• real-time control means at customer end coupled to said program evaluation means and to said customer television receiver for determining in correspondence with said television program evaluations and said television program time/channel data which of the programs currently scheduled for transmission has the best evaluation and, only when personal channel is selected by the customer, switching the customer television receiver to the channel of the television system on which the program having the best evaluation is scheduled for transmission.