Patent ID: 7992161

Claim:
A method for providing an incentive for a viewer to watch commercial advertisements, comprising: locally inserting an instruction by a set top box into broadcast programming to generate a prompt during commercial breaks that prompts the viewer to watch commercials; receiving selections during the commercials to receive additional information concerning selected commercials; receiving a log-off signal to stop the broadcast programming; disconnecting a switch in a motion picture expert group decoder to disconnect the broadcast programming; retrieving a screen from a database stored in local memory of the set top box; displaying a list of sponsors in the screen that are associated with the selected commercials; receiving a selection of a sponsor from the list of sponsors; navigating products and services offered by the sponsor; receiving a product selection offered by the sponsor; retrieving a video from the local memory of the set top box associated with the product selection; displaying the video; and providing the incentive after the video is played.