21. The local client set-top box as defined in claim 14 , further comprising a storage device to store the received video signals, wherein: one said tuner receives one said multiplexed channel carrying a signal containing EPG data that includes, for a plurality of television program, a textual description of each said television program and the starting time and the stopping time thereof; the processor executes an EPG application to search the textual description of each said television program received by the one said tuner for occurrences of textual data matching the first and second terms; and for each occurrence of textual data matching the first and second search terms in the EPG application, the processor executes a video record application to record on the storage device the video signals of a television program received on one said multiplexed channel and corresponding to one or more of said matches of the EPG application.
14. A local client set-top box comprising: a processor; a plurality of tuners to receive a respective plurality of channels carrying video signals; a closed caption decoder to extract, from the channels, at least one closed captioning stream of textual data; a user interface to present to a viewer to develop first search terms for creating an active list, the active list including one or more predefined first character strings as the first search terms; an application, executed on the processor, to create a passive list of second search terms, the second search terms comprising one or more character strings that have been extracted one or more times from previously received closed captioning streams of textual data of received video signals that the viewer has viewed or recorded, the one or more second character strings being extracted based on a frequency of occurrence in the previously received textual data; the application further executed on the processor to search, for each said channel, the closed captioning stream of textual data for occurrences of textual data matching one or more search terms by comparing the at least one closed captioning stream of textual data to the active list and the passive list, the comparing including determining whether a number of matches of the first search terms of the active list and the second search terms of the passive list with the textual data exceeds a threshold number, wherein when the number of matches of the first search terms of the active list and the second search terms of the passive list does not exceed the threshold number after a predetermined period of time, ceasing to search a first closed captioning stream of textual data from a first channel before an end of the first closed captioning stream is reached, deleting the corresponding content programming from the buffer, and searching instead a second closed captioning stream of textual data from a second channel; and a signal output device to output a notification when the number of matches of the first search terms of the active list and the second search terms of the passive list with the textual data exceeds the threshold number.