Modern research and technology have provided society with a wide variety of electronic devices. It is appreciated that some of these modern electronic devices are very powerful and useful to their users. For example, some of the electronic devices which fall into this category include: computers which occupy large office space down to computers which are held in one's hand, satellites which orbit around earth relaying a multitude of communication signals, global positioning system (GPS) devices capable of determining the specific locations of their users on the earth, cellular phones which enable their users to communicate wirelessly with other people, to name a few. Additionally, it should be appreciated that some modern electronic devices also provide entertainment to their users. For instance, some of the electronic devices which fall into this category include: portable and fixed radio receivers which provide their users music along with a wide array of different audio programming, video game consoles which challenge their users with varying situations within different virtual realities, portable and fixed compact disc (CD) players which provide music to their users, and portable and fixed televisions which provide a wide variety of visual and audio programming to their users.
It is appreciated that television programming is distributed to televisions of the general public in a wide variety of ways. For example, consumers of the general public are able to receive television programming on their televisions within their households and/or businesses via coaxial cables, personal satellite dishes (large or small), antennas, broadband Internet, and the like. Furthermore, most of these ways of distributing television programming provide the general public an ever increasing amount of television programming.
For example, not that long ago there use to be only three major television broadcast companies basically providing nationwide television programming throughout the entire United States of America. In contrast, currently there may be as many as one hundred times more television channels that are basically providing nationwide television programming. Furthermore, it is appreciated that some of these television channels are continuously broadcasting television programming 24 hours a day (e.g., ESPN, VH1, CNN, QVC, and the like). Consequently, there is a large amount of television programming available to consumers of the general public.
However, it should be appreciated that there are some disadvantages associated with the distribution of television programming. For instance, one of the disadvantages is that a typical television viewer does not have access to all of the television programming that is broadcast throughout the world. Therefore, the typical television viewer is unable to view television programming that he or she would be interested in viewing because it is being broadcast in remote cities, states, and/or countries.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds