A method and apparatus (10) for determining the channel of a plurality of predetermined channels to which a remotely controlled receiver (12) is tuned. A viewer transmitter device (24) includes a keyboard (26) for receiving viewer entered selections and a remote transmitter which transmits infrared, ultra­sonic, radio frequency or other radiated control sig­nals for each of the viewer selections. A receiver device (28) in a channel detection system (10) receives a signal in the selected transmission medium, and immediately signals a jamming device (44) to broadcast interference which precludes the remotely controlled receiver (12) from identifying and acting upon the transmitted control signal. The receiver device (28) applies the received signal to a processor device (30) that performs a stored program to determine if the received signal corresponds to a transmitted con­trol signal from the viewer transmitter device (24) and, if so, to identify the channel to which the moni­tored remotely controlled receiver (12) is to be tuned. An associated memory device (52) is used for storing the identified channel reception data. The processor device (30) identifies the user selection and either applies a corresponding control signal to a second transmitter device (48) which transmits a control signal of sufficient strength to overcome the inter­ference, or instructs the jamming device (44) to cease the broadcasting of interfering signals. In either case, the remotely controlled receiver (12) will now receive and implement the viewer selection. The pro­cessor device (30) will periodically broadcast a com­mand to the remotely controlled receiver (12) contain­ing the last identified channel data to ensure that a viewer does not manually adjust the channel being viewed.