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Abstract

A system for controlling the initiation of voting telephone calls by controlling character generators at a group of affiliated television broadcast stations through a control center which receives real-time feedback of telephone voting traffic data from polling terminals at telephone central offices and utilizes this information to regulate visual stimuli broadcast by the television station. The control center initiates polling traffic by causing associated character generators at the affiliate transmitter to produce the desired message displays across the TV screen. The control center monitors the polling call traffic at each central office until it determines that the traffic being generated has reached a level which is not within the traffic-handling capabilities of that particular central office switching machines. It then sends messages which cause the character generators at the local affiliate to reduce the frequency and/or duration of the message until the traffic generated has dropped to a level which is within the traffic handling capabilities of the central office, whereupon the frequency and/or duration is again increased.

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First Claim