Patent ID: 8381244

Claim:
A method of operating a system including a processor and at least one non-transitory processor-readable storage medium communicatively coupled with the processor, the method comprising: receiving a broadcast source data flow which is for broadcast to a broadcast audience of a plurality of broadcast receivers, and which comprises a plurality of content segments interspersed with a plurality of non-content segments, the content segments consisting of one or more sections of content material, and the non-content segments consisting of one or more sections of non-content material; selecting a plurality of replacement sections of non-content material to replace one or more of the sections of non-content material of the non-content segments; streaming as a stream the content segments of the broadcast and a plurality of replacement non-content segments interspersed with the content segments for an online audience of at least a plurality of streaming receivers; when streaming the replacement non-content segments for the online audience, recognizing that a next one of the content segments is going to begin in the broadcast source data flow; in response to recognizing that the next one of the content segments is going to begin, storing to a memory device any portions of the next one of the content segments of the broadcast source data flow which overlap with the replacement non-content segment still being streamed for the online audience; for each of the replacement non-content segments streamed, detecting an end of the replacement non-content segment; and in response to both recognizing that the next one of the content segments is going to begin in the broadcast source data flow and detecting the end of the replacement non-content segment, providing the stored portions of the content segments from the memory device for streaming to the streaming audience, wherein a duration of the replacement sections of non-content material for each of the non-content segments at least equals a duration of the respective non-content segment as reduced by any portion of the stored content segment provided into the respective non-content segment, and the duration of the replacement sections of non-content material for at least one of the non-content segments is greater than the duration of the respective non-content segment as reduced by any portion of the stored content segment provided into the respective non-content segment, and wherein selecting a plurality of replacement sections of non-content materials to replace one or more of the sections of the non-content materials of the non-content segments includes selecting at least one advertisement and at least one song which is not an advertisement as the replacement sections of non-content material to replace the sections of non-content material of one of the non-content segments.