Patent ID: 7627577

Claim:
A system for determining at least one geographic area served by each of a plurality of receiver units, comprising: a central system, including a processor and a memory, for distributing national content to the plurality of receiver units and for instructing the receiver units to generate local content, wherein the central system instructs the receiver units to generate local content that includes a unique ID associated with the receiver unit providing the local content; and the plurality of receiver units, each receiver unit serving at least one geographic area wherein each receiver unit generates local content that displays the unique ID associated with the receiver unit to a plurality of end viewers served by the receiver unit; wherein the central system receives from a subset of the end viewers served by the receiver units communications identifying the unique IDs that were communicated by the receiver units and the geographic areas where the unique IDs were displayed and the central system determines at least one geographic area served by each of the receiver units by associating the unique ID for each receiver unit with the geographic areas identified in the communications from the subset of the end viewers having the same unique ID, and wherein the central system maintains a database that associates each of the unique IDs with the at least one geographic area served by the receiver unit associated with the unique ID.