Patent ID: 8401191

Claim:
A method for a distributor to control access to distributed content, comprising: receiving subscriber information for a plurality of subscribers authorized to receive one or more portions of distributed content; classifying the plurality of subscribers as a member of one of a plurality of groups according to a grouping function and further based on the respective subscriber information; defining one or more group-specific access mechanisms for each of the plurality of groups, wherein each of the one or more group-specific access mechanisms provides access to the one or more portions of distributed content; determining a group-specific entitlement management message window within an entitlement management message (EMM) for each of the plurality of groups, wherein each group-specific entitlement management message window corresponds to specified time of a broadcast of the one or more group-specific access mechanisms corresponding to the respective one of the plurality of groups; providing the plurality of subscribers with a respective group-specific entitlement management message window, wherein an occurrence of each group-specific entitlement management message window is operable to cause a communication device of the respective subscriber to tune to a broadcast channel to receive the entitlement management message; and broadcasting the EMM comprising the respective group-specific access mechanisms with the respective group-specific entitlement management message windows.