JP2012005041A - Terminal apparatus, and server - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable to provide a viewing and listening indicator in an effective format to a user.SOLUTION: When a program is designated by an indicator transition display request operation, and when program group information related to the designated program is not stored in a storage part 23 (S110:NO) or when stored program group information is not completed (S120:NO), a program group extraction process for extracting an associated program that configures the same program group together with the designated program is executed(S130), and a viewing and listening indicator for each of the programs (the designated program and the associated program) that configure the program group is acquired from a server 10 via a network 5 (S140). A group viewing and listening indicator transition graph showing the transition of the viewing and listening indicator in the program group is displayed on a display part 25 based on the acquired viewing and listening indicator (S150-S160).

Description

  The present invention relates to a terminal device that uses program selection information necessary for program selection, and a server that provides information to the terminal device via a communication network.

  In digital broadcasting, an electronic program guide (EPG) used for confirming the detailed contents of a program, selecting a program to be viewed or reserved for recording, etc. has been put into practical use. Data used for displaying the EPG (EPG data) can be extracted from a digital broadcast signal or acquired via a network such as the Internet.

  Also, in a terminal device that can use EPG (for example, a television receiver, a recording device, a personal computer, etc.), a program or recording reservation that is being viewed from various operations (for example, remote control operations, etc.) performed by the user on the terminal device. Estimated programs, and aggregates the estimation results with a server on the network, and further distributes the viewing index (viewing rate, recording reservation rate, etc.) as a counting result to the terminal device via the network. It has been proposed to display the viewing index in association with a program on the EPG (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  Furthermore, a technique is also known in which viewing indexes are aggregated in real time on a server on the network, and the transition of the popularity (viewing rate) of the program being viewed is displayed on a terminal device based on the aggregated result (for example, , See Patent Document 2).

JP 2003-92773 A JP 2008-244602 A

However, in these conventional apparatuses, there is a problem that the viewing index is merely displayed in association with each program, and is not necessarily provided in a format desired by the user.
In order to solve the above-described problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a viewing index in a more effective format for a user.

  In the terminal device of the present invention made to achieve the above object, the selection information acquisition means acquires program selection information necessary for program selection. Then, when any program is designated from among the programs that can be selected by the program selection information acquired by the acquisition unit by the specifying unit, the extraction unit displays the program selection information acquired by the acquisition unit. By searching, programs belonging to the same program group as the program specified by the specifying means are extracted.

  In addition, a program group is a program (so-called band program) broadcast on the same time zone of a plurality of days of the week, such as a series drama or a wide show, or a program (so-called box program) broadcast on a specific day of the week. ) Etc.

  Then, the viewing index acquisition means acquires the viewing index of the designated program designated by the designation means and the related program extracted by the extraction means, and based on the obtained viewing index, the display means Display showing the transition of the viewing index.

Note that the viewing index is an index indicating how much the user's action that leads to viewing of the program of interest is performed, and refers to, for example, a viewing rate, a viewing number, a recording reservation rate, a recording reservation number, and the like.
In the terminal device of the present invention configured as described above, not only the viewing rate of the designated program but also the transition of the viewing index in the program group to which the program belongs is displayed, so the viewing index is displayed individually for each program. The quality of information provided for program selection support and the like can be improved as compared with the case where the program is selected.

Specifically, the extraction unit may be configured to extract a program whose program name included in the program selection information matches the program name of the designated program as a related program.
However, since the program name may contain additional information (characters, symbols, etc.) that suggests the number of stories, new programs, or the final episode, it is not necessary for all to match. It is only necessary that the parts excluding the attached information match.

In general, since the programs in the same program group are provided from the same broadcasting station, it is desirable that the extraction unit searches for programs broadcast by the same broadcasting station as the designated program.
Further, since the programs of the same program group are often broadcast on the same time zone or the same day of the week, the extraction means is configured to perform a search for a program broadcast on the same time zone or the same day of the week as the designated program. May be.

  In other words, since programs in the same program group (for example, series) have regularity in broadcast time, a program belonging to the same program group can be efficiently extracted by executing a search according to the rule. . In particular, when searching without specifying a time zone, it is possible to deal with a situation in which the broadcast time differs from the normal time due to the influence of a special program, sports broadcast, or the like.

  In addition, when the program selection information includes metadata indicating a correspondence relationship between a program and a program group, the extraction unit may be configured to extract a related program according to the metadata. Thereby, extraction with high reliability can be performed.

In the terminal device of the present invention described above, extraction of programs belonging to the same program group is performed on the terminal device side, but this may be configured to be performed on the server side.
That is, the server of the present invention includes a storage unit that stores program selection information necessary for program selection, and the reception unit receives a group information acquisition request specifying any program via the communication network.

  Then, the extraction means searches the program selection information stored in the storage means, extracts programs belonging to the same program group as the designated program specified by the group information acquisition request received by the reception means, and viewed The index acquisition unit acquires the viewing index of the designated program and the related program extracted by the extraction unit.

And a transmission means transmits the extraction result in an extraction means, and the acquisition result in a viewing parameter | index acquisition means to a request origin of a group information acquisition request via a communication network.
According to the server of the present invention configured as described above, a display showing the transition of the viewing index in the program group to which the designated program belongs is displayed on the terminal device to the terminal device connected to the communication network. Information can be provided, and as a result, the viewing index can be provided to the user of the terminal device in a more effective format.

  Needless to say, the items described in claims 2 to 5 may be applied to the server extraction means of the present invention.

1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information providing system to which the present invention is applied. The flowchart which shows the content of the group audience rating display process which a terminal device performs. The flowchart which shows the detail of a program group extraction process. The flowchart which shows the detail of a tied process. Explanatory drawing which illustrated the group viewing index transition graph displayed on a display part.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
[overall structure]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information providing system 1 to which the present invention is applied.

  The information providing system 1 includes a server 10 that provides various types of information related to a television program, and a plurality of terminal devices (also referred to as “clients”) 20 that can communicate with the server 10 via a network 5 such as the Internet. ing.

  The terminal device 20 is a device having at least a function of receiving digital broadcasting and a communication function via the network 5, and specifically includes a television receiver, a recorder, a personal computer (PC), an in-vehicle navigation device, It is configured as a mobile phone or the like.

[server]
The server 10 includes a communication unit 13 that performs communication with the terminal device 20 via the network 5 according to a predetermined protocol, a database 12 that stores various types of information to be provided to the terminal device 20, and the communication unit 13 and the database 12. And a control unit 11 that executes various processes using the.

  The database 12 includes a nonvolatile memory such as a hard disk drive or a flash memory, and stores at least viewing index data in which a program provided by digital broadcasting is associated with a viewing index of the program. As the viewing index, the average viewing rate, average viewing number, etc. are used for broadcasted programs, the real-time viewing rate, real-time viewing number, etc. are used for programs being broadcast, and the recording reservation rate, The number of recording reservations is used.

Further, the database 12 stores EPG data used for displaying an electronic program guide (EPG) for a predetermined period (for example, for the past one year).
The control unit 11 is configured as a well-known microcomputer including a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, and the like, and executes various processes based on a program stored in the ROM, a program loaded on the RAM, and parameters.

  The processing executed by the control unit 11 includes information generation processing for generating information to be stored in the database 12 based on information acquired from the terminal device 20 via the communication unit 13 (and thus the network 5), and from the terminal device 20 The information provision processing for providing the terminal device 20 with the information stored in the database 12 (in this case, the information index data and the EPG data) is included at least.

  Among these, the information providing process is a well-known process for realizing the original function of the server. In addition, the information generation process is a process of counting viewing indexes for each program based on operation information (described later) transmitted from the terminal device 20, generating viewing index data from the counting results, and storing it in the database. For example, since it is described in detail in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-244731, etc., description thereof is omitted here.

[Terminal device]
The terminal device 20 performs communication with the server 10 via the network 5 according to a predetermined protocol, a broadcast receiving unit 26 that receives digital broadcasts, and operations for inputting various commands to the terminal device 20. In addition to the video received by the unit 24 and the broadcast receiving unit 26, a display unit 25 for performing various displays based on commands input via the operation unit 24, and a process of executing various processes by controlling these units Unit 21 and a storage unit 23 for storing the processing results in the processing unit 21, information acquired from the server 10 via the communication unit 22 (and thus the network 5), and the like.

  The configuration of the terminal device 20 shown in FIG. 1 is a configuration common to the various terminal devices 20, and each terminal device 20 should fulfill the terminal device 20 other than the configuration described in FIG. It has a configuration for realizing the original function. However, since the configuration is not the main part of the invention, the illustration is omitted here.

  The broadcast receiving unit 26 is connected to an antenna that receives a digital broadcast signal, a CATV network that supplies the digital broadcast signal, and the like, and extracts a desired program signal from the digital broadcast signal according to an operation on the operation unit 24, It consists of a known tuner having a function of extracting EPG data from a digital broadcast signal.

  The operation unit 24 is configured as a user interface that receives an operation from a user such as a keyboard, a mouse, and a remote controller. The operation unit 24 uses the broadcast receiving unit 26 to perform an operation for selecting a program to be viewed (program selection operation), when the terminal device 20 is a recorder, or when a recorder is connected to the terminal device 20. If there is, an operation for making a recording reservation (recording reservation operation), an operation for inputting a command to display the viewing index transition in the program group to which the designated program belongs on the display unit 25 (index transition display request operation), etc. Is configured to be at least possible.

  The storage unit 23 is configured by a non-volatile memory such as a hard disk drive or a flash memory, for example, similarly to the database 12 in the server 10. In addition, the storage unit 23 has at least an area for storing EPG data extracted by the broadcast receiving unit 26 and an area for storing program group information, which is one of the processing results of the processing unit 21. .

  The area for storing EPG data is secured so that not only the latest data extracted from the digital broadcast signal but also data for a predetermined period (for example, the past three months) can be stored. The program group information is information related to each program constituting the program group, and includes the broadcast date and time of each program, the viewing index acquired from the server 10, various information calculated from the viewing index, and the like.

  Similar to the control unit 11 in the server 10, the processing unit 21 is configured as a well-known microcomputer including a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, and the like. A program stored in the ROM, a program loaded in the RAM, and parameters are stored in the processing unit 21. Based on this, predetermined processing is executed.

  Specifically, the processing unit 21 uses, as operation information, a program that is being viewed specified by the program selection operation by the operation unit 24 and a program that has been reserved for recording specified by the recording reservation operation, as the operation information. ) At least a group viewing index display process executed according to an index transition display request operation input from the operation unit 24.

  Among them, the operation information notification process is a well-known process described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-244731, similar to the information generation process in the server 10, and the description thereof is omitted here.

<Group viewing index display processing>
Here, the group viewing index display processing will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.
This process is activated when an index transition display request operation is detected by the operation unit 24. The index transition display request operation includes an operation for designating a program using EPG data, and this designated program is hereinafter referred to as a “designated program”. The designated program may be a broadcasted program, a broadcast program, or an unbroadcast program.

  When this process is started, first, it is determined whether or not the program group information for the program group to which the designated program belongs is stored in the storage unit 23 (S110), and if it is stored (S110: YES), It is determined whether the program group information is complete (the information up to the final story exists) (S120).

  If the program group information related to the designated program is not stored in the storage unit 23 (S110: NO), or the stored program group information is not completed (S120: NO), the program group information is the same as the designated program. A program group extraction process for extracting programs (hereinafter referred to as “related programs”) constituting the program group of the program group is executed (S130), and the viewing index for each of the programs (designated program and related programs) constituting the program group 5 from the server 10 via S5 (S140).

  However, as a viewing index, for programs that have already been broadcast, the audience rating or the number of viewers (average value, maximum value, minimum value through the program), and for programs that are being broadcast, the real-time audience rating or the number of viewers is not yet available. For a broadcast program, the recording reservation rate or the number of recording reservations is acquired. For a program being broadcast, a recording reservation rate and a recording reservation number may be acquired instead of the real-time viewing rate and the real-time viewing number.

  Next, information related to the entire program group is obtained from the viewing index acquired in S140, and this information (hereinafter referred to as “display information”) is acquired in each program constituting the program group extracted in S130, S140. It is stored in the storage unit 23 as program group information together with the viewing index of each program (S150). However, if the program group information already exists, the information generated this time is added to the original information.

  The display information may be, for example, the average value, maximum value, minimum value, etc. of the audience rating or number of views through the program group (series). However, if the entire story has not ended, only the broadcasted program may be targeted.

  Finally, based on the program group information stored in S150, a group viewing index transition graph showing the transition of the viewing index in the program group is displayed on the display unit 25 (S160), and this process is terminated.

Here, FIG. 5A shows a display example of the group viewing index transition graph. However, it is assumed that the program group to be displayed has already been broadcast until the final story.
As shown in the figure, the average audience rating of the program is shown as a line graph in accordance with the number of programs (in broadcast order) of the program group, and the average audience rating throughout the program group is shown along with this line graph. , The lowest audience rating and the highest audience rating are also displayed.

  FIG. 5B is an enlarged view of the points on the line graph. As shown in FIG. 5B, not only the average audience rating of each story but also the maximum audience rating and the lowest audience rating in the program of the number of stories. May be displayed simultaneously.

The group viewing index transition graph may change the color of dots and lines according to the degree of viewing index, or may display the broadcast date and time instead of the number of stories or together with the number of stories.
Further, a real-time audience rating may be displayed instead of the average audience rating for a program being broadcast, and a recording reservation rate may be displayed instead of the average audience rating for an unbroadcast program. Moreover, the display of the viewing rate / recording reservation rate and the display of the viewing number / recording reservation number may be switchable according to a user operation.

<Program group extraction processing>
Next, details of the program group extraction process executed in the previous S110 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 3, first, it is determined whether or not EPG data necessary for the search is stored in the storage unit 23 (S210). If not stored (S210: NO), the broadcast receiving unit 26 or the communication EPG data is acquired via the unit 22 (network 5) (S220).

  Then, among the EPG data stored in the storage unit 23, a program that is the same broadcast station as the designated program and is broadcast or broadcast on the same day of the week as the designated program is designated as a search target. All the programs having the same program name as that of the program are extracted as related programs (S230), and for the extracted related program and designated program, the number of episodes in the program group is specified for each program. Processing (described later) is executed (S240).

  However, when a part of the program group information exists in the storage unit 23 (when S120 is NO), when setting the search target, a range that does not need to be searched (specified from the existing program group information) Are excluded from the search target. The same applies when setting the search target.

  Next, based on the result of the linking process in S240, it is determined whether or not there is an omission of extraction of a program constituting the program group (S250). If there is no omission of extraction (S250: NO), this process is performed as it is. finish.

Whether or not there is an extraction failure is determined based on whether or not there is an omission in the number of stories of the specified program based on the result of the linking process.
On the other hand, if there is an omission (S250: YES), among the EPG data stored in the storage unit 23, the program is the same broadcast station as the designated program, the same day of the week as the designated program, and a different time zone from the designated program. As a search target, all programs having the same program name as the designated program are extracted as related programs (S260), and the same linking process as in S240 is performed on each extracted program. Execute (S270).

  Next, based on the result of the linking process in S270, it is determined whether or not there is an omission of extraction of a program constituting the program group (S280). If there is no omission of extraction (S280: NO), this process is performed as it is. finish.

  On the other hand, if there is an omission (S280: YES), the EPG data stored in the storage unit 23 is a program of the same broadcast station as the designated program, and is on a day of the week different from the designated program and in the same time zone as the designated program. As a search target, all programs having the same program name as the designated program are extracted as related programs (S290), and the same linking process as that in S240 is performed on each extracted program. Execute (S300).

  Next, based on the result of the linking process in S300, it is determined whether or not there is an omission of extraction of the program constituting the program group (S310), and if there is no omission of extraction (S310: NO), this process is performed as it is. finish.

  On the other hand, if there is an omission (S310: YES), the EPG data stored in the storage unit 23 is a program of the same broadcast station as the designated program, and is a day of the week different from the designated program and a time different from the designated program. All programs having the same program name as that of the designated program are extracted as related programs with the program broadcast or broadcast on the band as a search target (S320), and the same linking process as that of S240 is performed on each extracted program Is executed (S330), and this process is terminated.

  In other words, first, set a search range assuming that the program group to which the designated program belongs is a band program, then set a search range assuming that there is a time when the broadcast time zone is shifted although it is a band program, Next, set a search range that is assumed to be a box program once a week, then set a search range that is assumed to be a box program but the times that the broadcast time zone has shifted, and finally A search range (that is, the entire range) assuming that there is no law in the broadcast day of the week and the broadcast time zone is set, and related programs are extracted.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, the search range is expanded step by step when there is a program extraction failure, but the entire EPG data stored in the storage unit 23 from the beginning is set as the search range. It may be.

<Pegging process>
Next, the details of the linking process executed in S240, S270, S300, and S320 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

  In this process, first, is there a program that has been extracted by the process executed in the step before executing this process and is not a target of the process described later (hereinafter referred to as “unprocessed program”)? If there is no unprocessed program (S400: NO), this process is terminated as it is.

  On the other hand, if there is an unprocessed program (S400: YES), one of the unprocessed programs is selected (S410), and whether or not the EPG data related to the selected program includes metadata related to the number of stories. Is determined (S420). If metadata regarding the number of stories is included (S420: YES), the number of stories is recognized from the metadata (S430).

  If the EPG data does not include the metadata regarding the number of stories (S420: NO), the information indicating the program name (hereinafter referred to as "program name information") included in the EPG data regarding the program selected in S410. Then, it is determined whether or not information indicating the number of stories in the program group is included (S440). If the information indicating the number of stories is included in the program name information (S440: YES), the number of stories is recognized from the information suggesting the number of stories (S450).

  Here, the information suggesting the number of stories is, for example, information including numbers suggesting the number of stories such as “5 episodes”, “1 night”, “# 3”, new programs such as “new”, “end”, and the last It is information that includes characters that suggest times. That is, if the number indicating the number of stories is included in the program name information, the number is recognized as the number of stories, and if the information indicating the new program is included, the first episode, the last If the information suggests that the time is included, it is recognized as the final episode.

However, if the program name is "Last Station, Shinjuku Night" and the program name itself contains characters that suggest the number of stories such as "New" or "End", the number of stories will be misrecognized. there is a possibility.
Therefore, when there are multiple new programs or programs that are determined to be the last episode in the same program group, the most information that suggests the new program or the last episode is included. It may be judged that the program is a new program or the final episode, and the others are ignored for information suggesting that it is a new program or the final episode, and the number of stories is recognized again. .

  Specifically, the program name information of the three programs forming the same program group is “Final Station, Shinjuku Night 1st Night [New]” “Final Station, Shinjuku Night 2nd Night” “Final Station, Shinjuku Night, last night [end] ", the program name information for" 1 night "contains more characters of" new "indicating that it is a new program than other program name information, In addition, the program name information for “Last Night” contains more characters of “End” to indicate that it is the last episode than other program title information. Can be recognized.

  Also, if there are multiple new programs or programs that are determined to be the last episode in the same program group, the information common to the program name information (in the above example, “Final station, Shinjuku night (XX) night”) ) May be ignored, and the number of stories may be recognized from the remaining information.

  If the program name information does not include information suggesting the number of stories (S440: NO), it is determined whether there is a program with the same name on the previous week or the previous day (S460). If there is no program with the same name (S460: NO), the program is recognized as the first episode (S470), and if there is a program with the same name (S460: YES), the number of episodes has already been recognized. From the relationship with the program, the number of stories of the program is estimated (S480). However, if the information of another program is insufficient and cannot be estimated, the processing is suspended, and after the number of stories of the other program is recognized, the number of stories of the suspended program is estimated again. Also good.

  When the process of recognizing the number of talks in the program (S420 to S480) is completed, it is next determined whether or not the program name information includes information suggesting that it is a rebroadcast (S490). If the program name information includes information suggesting that it is rebroadcast (S490: YES), the program is recognized as being rebroadcast (S500).

When the process of recognizing whether the program is a rebroadcast (S490 to S500) is completed, the process returns to S400, and the above processes (S400 to S500) are repeated.
Note that the recognition results at S430, S450, S470, S480, and S500 are stored in the storage unit 23 as one piece of program group information.

[effect]
As described above, in the terminal device 20, when a program is designated by the index transition display request operation, the EPG data extracted from the digital broadcast signal or acquired through the network 5 and stored in the storage unit 23 is searched. Then, a program (related program) constituting the same program group as the designated program is extracted. And the viewing index of each program which comprises the program group is acquired via the network 5, and based on the acquired viewing index, the group viewing index transition graph which shows transition of the viewing index within the program group is displayed. Has been.

  Thus, according to the terminal device 20, the transition of the viewing index in the entire program group to which the designated program belongs can be presented to the user, and the viewing index is displayed individually for each program, It is possible to improve the quality of information provided for program selection support and the like.

  In addition, when extracting related programs for the designated program, the terminal device 20 first performs a search by narrowing the search range according to the broadcast pattern, and if the result is insufficient, the search range is sequentially expanded. The search is repeated.

  Therefore, according to the terminal device 20, it is possible to suppress the useless search from being performed, to effectively use the processing capability of the device, and to broadcast related programs due to the influence of special programs or sports broadcasts. Even when the time is different from usual, the related program can be extracted without any problem.

[Correspondence with Invention]
In the above embodiment, S210 and S220 correspond to selection information acquisition means, the operation unit 24 corresponds to designation means, S230 to S330 correspond to extraction means, S140 corresponds to viewing index acquisition means, and S160 corresponds to display means.

[Other Embodiments]
As mentioned above, although one Embodiment of this invention was described, this invention is not limited to the said embodiment, In the range which does not deviate from the summary of this invention, it is possible to implement in various aspects.

For example, in the above embodiment, the program group extraction process is performed on the terminal device 20 side, but this process may be performed on the server 10 side.
In this case, the server 10 and the terminal device 20 may be configured to perform the following operations.

  In other words, when an index transition display request operation is performed by the operation unit 24, the terminal device 20 sends a group information acquisition request that clearly indicates a designated program designated by the operation via the communication unit 22 (network 5). 10 to send.

  In the server 10 that has received the group information acquisition request via the communication unit 13 (network 5), the control unit 11 executes program group extraction processing using the EPG data stored in the database 12, and the processing result is Certain program group information is transmitted to the terminal device 20 via the communication unit 13.

  In the terminal device 20 that has received the program group information via the communication unit 22, the processing unit 21 stores the program group information in the storage unit 23 and executes processes corresponding to S150 and S160.

By setting it as such a structure, the processing burden in the terminal device 20 can be reduced.
In the above embodiment, the viewing index is not particularly classified, but the server 10 aggregates the viewing index according to conditions such as gender, age, and area, and the terminal device 20 displays the group viewing index transition graph as You may comprise so that a display can be switched according to conditions.

  In the above embodiment, it has been described that metadata relating to the number of stories of a program is acquired from EPG data. However, such metadata is configured to be acquired from a community site or the like for a specified program existing on the network 5. May be.

  In the above embodiment, the number of stories is estimated using metadata or EPG data, but the results of extracting the display and narration on the screen indicating the number of stories using image analysis technology and speech analysis technology are used. You may comprise so that it may carry out.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Information provision system 5 ... Network 10 ... Server 11 ... Control part 12 ... Database 13 ... Communication part 20 ... Terminal device 21 ... Processing part 22 ... Communication part 23 ... Memory | storage part 24 ... Operation part 25 ... Display part 26 ... Broadcast reception Part

Claims (6)

Selection information acquisition means for acquiring program selection information necessary for program selection;
Designation means for designating one of the programs that can be selected by the program selection information acquired by the acquisition means;
An extraction means for searching the program selection information acquired by the acquisition means and extracting programs belonging to the same program group as the program specified by the specification means;
Viewing index acquisition means for acquiring the viewing index of the designated program designated by the designation means and the related program extracted by the extraction means;
Display means for displaying based on the viewing index acquired by the viewing index acquisition means to indicate the transition of the viewing index in the program group;
A terminal device comprising:   2. The terminal apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the extracting unit extracts a program whose program name included in the program selection information matches a program name of the designated program as the related program.   The terminal device according to claim 2, wherein the extraction unit performs a search for a program broadcast by the same broadcasting station as the designated program.   The terminal device according to claim 2, wherein the extraction unit performs a search for a program broadcast on the same time zone or the same day of the week as the designated program.   The said extraction means, when the metadata which shows the corresponding relationship of a program and a program group is contained in the said program selection information, extracts the said related program according to this metadata. The terminal device according to any one of 4. Storage means for storing program selection information necessary for program selection;
Accepting means for accepting a group information acquisition request specifying any program via a communication network;
An extraction unit that searches the program selection information stored in the storage unit and extracts programs belonging to the same program group as the designated program specified by the group information acquisition request received by the reception unit;
Viewing index acquisition means for acquiring viewing indices of the designated program and related programs extracted by the extraction means;
Transmitting means for transmitting the extraction result of the extraction means and the acquisition result of the viewing index acquisition means to the request source of the group information acquisition request via the communication network;
A server comprising:

Images