Patent ID: 7434247

Claim:
A method in a programmable computing device for determining the desirability of programming events, the method comprising executing processing comprising: receiving metadata describing programming events, the metadata that describes a programming event being comprised of at least one of descriptive data and keyword data; determining a keyword match score for each programming event having a keyword match, wherein a keyword match is a match of the at least one of descriptive data and keyword data of the programming event metadata and a keyword of the at least one viewer profile, and ranking the programming events in accordance with the keyword match scores for each programming event; wherein the metadata for a programming event further comprises goodness of fit scores associated with respective subject matter categories, wherein a goodness of fit score represents the degree to which the corresponding category is descriptive of the subject matter of the programming event; wherein the method further comprises determining a category match score for each programming event as a function of the metadata goodness of fit scores and viewer profile preference scores of matched categories of the programming event, wherein a matched category is a category for which there is a goodness of fit score in the metadata of the programming event and a preference score in a viewer profile; and wherein said ranking is performed in accordance with the keyword match scores for each programming event and the category match scores for each programming event.