Patent ID: 8239908

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium containing a computer program comprising instructions that when executed by a computer to verify an occurrence of a blackout event in a data distribution system, the computer program comprising: instructions to receive restricted content data at the data distribution system; instructions to receive at the data distribution system, blackout event data indicating at least one event criterion data for selecting client devices subject to the blackout event for the restricted content data; instructions to place at the data distribution system, client devices into a client device group subject to the blackout event in accordance with the event criterion data; instructions to correlate at the data distribution system, the event criterion data with the restricted content data; instructions to generate at the data distribution system, at least one substitution event data table from the correlating for the client device group; instructions to send from the data distribution system, restricted content and the substitution event data embedded in the restricted content data to each client device in the client device group; instructions to receive at the data distribution system, retune activity data from at least one of the client devices in the client device group; instructions to correlate at the data distribution system, the blackout event data with the retune activity data to verify the occurrence of the blackout event in the client device; and instructions to compare time of day data for the retune activity data for the client devices in the client device group to time of day for the blackout event data to verify that the retune activity data coincides with the blackout event data.