Patent ID: 7921440

Claim:
A method for managing content viewing on a display in a television environment, comprising: receiving at a set top box an indication of values that correspond to a plurality of viewing budget parameters for program content available for viewing, the parameters including a time length of the content and a genre of the program content available for viewing, the indication of values being received from a headend device; receiving at the set top box budget allotment conditions including a restriction on access to content based on the genre of the content and a time allotment for the genre of the program content available for viewing; storing at the set top box the received viewing budget parameter values for use in offsetting against a viewing budget for a display device; and upon receiving an indication at the set top box that a selected content is requested for viewing on the display device, wherein the selected content is a program for presenting on a television, tracking data associated with the selected content including a time length of the selected content and a genre of the selected content; reconciling the selected content against the viewing budget by subtracting one or more of the viewing budget parameters associated with the selected content from one or more of the budget allotment conditions; and denying viewing of the selected content if access to the selected content is restricted if a time length for the genre of the selected content does not fit within the time allotment specified by the budget allotment condition.