Patent ID: 7454772

Claim:
A method for searching blocked and archived television commercials comprising: offering a plurality of entertainment packages from an alternate viewing provider, each of the plurality of entertainment packages adapted to fit into a time of a particular commercial; using a television and combined with a logical unit, receiving a television program containing the particular commercial; recognizing the particular commercial in the logical unit by an aggregation of at least one characteristic of a data sequence of the particular commercial; responsive to a recognition of the particular commercial by the logical unit, blocking the particular commercial from the television; saving the particular commercial to an archive containing a plurality of commercials previously blocked from the television by the logical unit; displaying on the television a message informing a viewer that an entertainment package will be presented during a segment of time of the particular commercial, an on-screen counter showing how many seconds are left before a return to the television program, and directions to the tuner to go to a particular channel; responsive to a user entering a search term adapted to locate a commercial in a particular area of interest, determining in the logical unit a list of commercials in the archive containing a text that matches the search term; and responsive to the user selecting a matching commercial from the list, sending the matching commercial to an open channel on the television for viewing by the user.