Patent ID: 8204073

Claim:
One or more non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of providing personalized media content to a display device, the method comprising: receiving television programming at a media-receiving device from a content provider, wherein the media-receiving device includes a wireless-communications component that transmits to and receives data from a plurality of mobile communications devices in a protocol via a wireless personal area network (PAN) that is effective within a distance range from the wireless-communications component, wherein the mobile communications devices are each is associated with a wireless communications carrier and are configured to communicate with their respective wireless communications carrier; incident to the mobile communications devices entering the distance range, receiving at the media-receiving device identifying indicia associated with the mobile communications devices, wherein the identifying indicia is received from the mobile communications devices via the wireless PAN, and wherein the identifying indicia uniquely identifies each the mobile communications devices; querying at least one remote database from the media-receiving device by communicating the identifying indicia from the media-receiving devices to the remote database to retrieve profile data that includes media programming preferences from a profile associated with each of the mobile communications devices, wherein each profile is stored in the at least one remote database, and wherein the at least one remote database is associated with at least one of the content provider and the respective wireless communications carrier and is accessible to both the content provider and the wireless communications carrier; receiving, at the media-receiving device, the profile data that includes the media programming preference, wherein the profile data is received in response to the query by the media-receiving device; communicating personalized media content from the media-receiving device to the display device, wherein the personalized media content is based on at least a collective portion of the profile data received by the media-receiving device from the at least one remote database, wherein the profile data is associated with the identifying indicia received from the mobile communications devices; and communicating the personalized media content from the media-receiving device via the wireless PAN to the mobile communications devices.