Patent ID: 7165265

Claim:
A broadcast reception apparatus for receiving contents and reproduction programs that correspond to types of the contents, and reproducing the contents by executing the reproduction programs, the broadcast reception apparatus comprising: a receiving unit for receiving broadcast information which shows for each content a first set of a first service period and a first channel during and over which the content is transmitted, and also shows for each reproduction program a second set of a second service period and a second channel during and over which the reproduction program is transmitted; a reproduction program determining unit for determining a reproduction program to be cached; an identifying unit for identifying, by referring to the broadcast information, one or more sets of a service period and a channel during and over which the predicted reproduction program is to be transmitted after a current time; and a caching unit for allowing the receiving unit to receive the predicted reproduction program during and over the service periods and channels identified by the identifying unit, and store the received, predicted reproduction program in a reproduction program storage unit, wherein each reproduction program is a software program, wherein the broadcast information further shows correspondence between the reproduction programs and the contents, and also shows genres to which the contents belong, the reproduction program determining unit includes: a storage unit for storing history information that shows history of genres to which contents having been viewed belong; a contents identifying unit for identifying, by referring to the history information, genres that correspond to contents that have been viewed a predetermined number of times or more, and identify, by referring to the broadcast information, contents that belong to the identified genres, as viewing candidate contents; a reproduction program identifying unit for identifying reproduction programs that correspond to the viewing candidate contents as candidate reproduction programs, by referring to the broadcast information; and a determining unit for determining the reproduction program to be cached, among the candidate reproduction programs, wherein the contents identifying unit identifies, as viewing candidate contents, contents that are transmitted during a predetermined time period after the current time, among the viewing candidate contents identified by the contents identifying unit by referring to the broadcast information, and the determining unit, when there are a plurality of candidate reproduction programs, determines preferentially a reproduction program having the longest activation duration as the reproduction program to be cached.