Patent ID: 8010978

Claim:
A personalized advertisement providing method which is used in an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) System, comprising: receiving at least one broadcasting program of a plurality of broadcasting programs classified according to a plurality of channels; and determining whether a present time is an advertisement broadcasting time, transmitting a received broadcasting program to a plurality of user terminals which selects a channel on which the broadcasting program is provided if the present time is not an advertisement broadcasting time, dividing the plurality of user terminals into a plurality of groups and transmitting an advertisement classified for each group to one or more user terminals belonging to the group if the present time is an advertisement broadcasting time, wherein the transmitting of the advertisement comprises: receiving a channel change request from a user terminal; acquiring information about a group to which a subscriber of the user terminal belongs, in response to the channel change request; and instructing a network switch to add a port to which the subscriber is connected to a multicast tree which transmits to the user terminal an advertisement for the group to which the subscriber of the user terminal belongs, with reference to the information about the group to which the subscriber of the user terminal belongs.