Queue-based head-end advertisement scheduling method and apparatus

A method of transmitting television programming and advertising from a head end to subscribers at a plurality of subscriber nodes, the method comprising the steps of:

• creating a plurality of subscriber groups, members of the subscriber groups being based on at least one characteristic of the subscribers, the at least one characteristic being relevant to advertising;
• assigning at least one subscriber node, of the plurality of subscriber nodes, to one of the plurality of subscriber groups;
• receiving at the head end at least one programming channel of television programming;
• forming from the at least one programming channel a plurality of presentation channels of television programming identical to the at least one programming channel, each presentation channel corresponding to one of the plurality of subscriber groups;
• storing a plurality of advertisements for insertion into advertising avails in each of the plurality of presentation channels;
• creating, for each presentation channel corresponding to one of the subscriber groups, a queue of one or more advertisements from the plurality of advertisements, wherein the advertisements in each queue are relevant to the at least one characteristic of the respective subscriber group;
• inserting, into the advertising avails in each of the presentation channels, one or more advertisements from the corresponding queue;
• and
• transmitting each of the presentation channels to the at least one subscriber node in the subscriber group corresponding to the presentation channel.