Abstract: It is difficult to easily and efficiently collect information such as the viewing and listening history of an audience in a present television and the like. A receiving device 0100 according to the present invention includes a data receiving section 0103 receiving broadcast data, a data output section 0104 outputting the data received by the receiving section, a history storage section 0107 storing various histories relating to data output and the like.

Abstract: Since there has been conventionally provided no device effectively mixing a broadcasting characteristic and a communication characteristic for the transmission and receiving of one information, the cost for information transmission and receiving is disadvantageously pushed up and it takes a disadvantageously long time. To solve this problem, this invention adopts a configuration in which a content which is information to be fed from a transmitting end to a receiving end, information on presence/absence of various instructions for controlling a terminal function and various instructions themselves are transmitted and received using both broadcasting, and communication which is intended for specific parties.

Abstract: A terminal condition controlling method and apparatus capable of operating at a low cost and effectively grasping the conditions of a plurality of terminals. In a communication system comprising a plurality of terminals and a server, the terminals are connected to the server apparatus through a communication line and transmit condition information, and the server apparatus statistically processes the attained condition information to execute the forecasting. In this time, the plurality of terminals have timings of informing the server apparatus of the condition determined for the respective terminals, and the timings for the respective terminals are distributed within a predetermined period. With this constitution, the present invention realizes to use the analysis result of the terminal condition information as data for making the next program or data for deciding whether or not the broadcasting of software should be continued in changing the version of software.