Patent ID: 7716704

Claim:
A method for sorting a television program schedule to assist a user in selecting a television program for viewing or recording based on characteristics of television programs previously watched by said viewer comprising the steps of: receiving a schedule of television programs to be broadcast comprising scheduled broadcast time and characteristics of said programs; maintaining a user profile which comprises characteristic weights based on programs previously watched by said user; allowing said user to select a future time period; allowing said user to select between a first mode and a second mode for generating a list of suggested television programs; periodically incrementing said characteristic weights according to a weighting algorithm comprising: Wp ( Rel 1* Cth 1+ Rel 2* Cth 2+ . . . + Rel n*Cthn )+ C 2*( Ct 1+ Ct 2+ . . . + Ctn ) wherein: Wp is a weight for a program in a program schedule guide; each of Cth1, Cth2 . . . Cthn corresponds to a value in a counter in the user profile for each of at least one characteristic comprising a topic and a theme in a format Topic_Theme that the program belongs to; each of Rel1, Rel2 . . . Reln is a corresponding characteristics relevancy factor for each at least one Topic_Theme in the program, p; each of Ct1, Ct2 . . . Ctn is an average weight for a plurality of Topics in the program; Ct 1=( Cth I+Cth 12+ . . . + Cth 1 m )/ m; Cth11 is the counter value for Topic 1_Theme 1, Cth12 is the counter value for Topic 1_Theme 2, . . . Cth1m is the counter value for Topic 1_Theme m; m is a Theme number in a first Topic; Ctn=(Cthn1+Cthn2+ . . . +Cthnp)/p; Cthn1 is a counter value for Topic n_Theme1; Cthn2 is a counter value for Topic n_Theme 2, Cthnp is a counter value for Topic n_Theme p; p is a Theme number in an nth Topic; wherein in said first mode, C2 is set to 1; and wherein in said second mode, C2 is set to 0 and if any Topic-Theme counters corresponding to Topic Themes in a program, p, are 0, then Wp=0; and generating a list of suggested television programs within said selected future time period based on said characteristics of scheduled television programs and said characteristic weights in said user profile, wherein if said first mode is selected, a program having at least one characteristic which has a zero weight in said user profile can be suggested, and wherein if said second mode is selected, a program having at least one characteristic which has a zero weight in said user profile can not be suggested.