An Automatic Purchase System (APS) provides a radio broadcast listener with the
ability to conveniently purchase media content such as music or speech while listening
to the radio. The user can respond to items in the radio broadcast such as advertisements,
fund raising drives such as those conducted by public radio, or interactive listener
polls during the broadcast. Data such as song title and artist, author or publisher
and the IP address for the location where the digital version of the content is
stored, can be transmitted using the RBDS/RDS data stream. A reference number representing
song title and artist, author or publisher and the IP address for the location
where the digital version of the content is stored can also be employed for ease
of implementation. This reference number can reside in a lookup table to be accessed
by the APS server software on a Data Server located at the broadcast site, a remote
site or both for purposes of redundancy. Transmission of purchase requests from
a Technology Enabled Radio (TER) is provided via wireless transmission, or by accessing
the Internet using a personal computer or through a cellular or wireless phone.