Abstract: A method and apparatus for creating a personalized channel capable of providing a selected commercial to display on a display device includes a viewer reference profile defined with respect to at least one attribute descriptive of a commercial is acquired and used to select a commercial from a plurality of commercials stored in a database. A virtual channel is allocated from available channels in a channel list having a plurality of program channels. The selected commercial is then associated with the virtual channel so as to allow display of the selected channel on the display device when the virtual channel is accessed by a user.

Abstract: An information alert system and method are provided. Content from various sources, such as television, radio and/or Internet, are analyzed for the purpose of determining whether the content matches a predefined alert profile, which is manually or automatically created. An alert is then automatically created to permit access to the information in audio, video and/or textual form.