Patent ID: 7053924

Claim:
A television conference system, comprising: a promoter terminal that is used by a promoter who promotes a conference; and a plurality of participant terminals that are used by participants in the conference and connected to the promoter terminal via a communication line, wherein a maximum connection line number N of the participant terminals which are connectable to the promoter terminal is previously set, and a connection line number M of participant terminals which are connected to the promoter terminal is set to M≦N wherein the participant terminals includes speaker terminals which are enabled to perform two-way communication with the promoter terminal, and audience terminals which are enabled to perform one-way communication with the promoter terminal, and the connection line number M of participant terminals which are connected to the promoter terminal is set to M=2S+T where S is a number of connected speaker terminals and T is a number of connected audience terminals, and in response to a voice request from one of the audience terminals, the promoter terminal selects one of the speaker terminals which is transferable to an audience terminal, transfers the selected speaker terminal to an audience terminal, while transfers the audience terminal issuing the voice request to a speaker terminal.