Apparatus and method for logging television viewing patterns for guardian review

A guardian review system is disclosed which monitors the television programming that a child watches and to report back to the parent. The hardware consists of a logical unit which is used to monitor the television programming. The software is divided into two programs: the monitor program and the report program. The monitor program analyzes the closed captioning signal, the audio signal, the title, and content ratings of the television programming to determine if the television programming contains any of the offensive items specified by the parent. The monitor program creates data of the offensive language viewed by the child and sends the data to the report program. The reporting program receives criteria from the parent such as time, channel, duration, rating, and content of a television program. The report program can operate either on the television or on an external computing device, such as the parent's personal computer.