Patent ID: 7810131

Claim:
A broadcast system comprising: a control server configured to generate a transport stream comprising encoded program content and a global control stream that are injected into the transport stream, the transport stream being transmitted in a network for delivery to all decoders connected to the network; and a plurality of decoders at a remote location relative to the control server, each of the plurality of decoders being configured to receive the transport stream and to extract messages from the global control stream in the transport stream based on a global identifier within the messages, the messages extracted from the global control stream comprising at least one subscriber group code and associated matching instructions, each of the plurality of decoders implementing a matching algorithm to determine a match based on the at least one subscriber group code in a given one of the extracted messages and at least one decoder group code stored in each of the plurality of decoders, each of the plurality of decoders for which a match exists being programmed to determine whether it is targeted or not targeted to perform at least one action that is specified within the given one of the extracted messages based on the matching instructions within the given message, at least one of the plurality of decoders having a previously targeted state being programmed to change its state to a non-targeted state in response to the match, each of the plurality of decoders that is targeted performing the at least one action specified in the given one of the extracted messages.