This method facilitates an operation of selecting one program from among a plurality of programs, each having the substantially same content without placing burden on the user, and in particular, an operation of extracting an upward compatible program. The method retrieves a program scheduled to be broadcast having the same content as a pre-recorded program and extracts a difference between the pre-recorded program and the scheduled program and, in the event that the difference satisfies a predetermined criterion of determination, notifies the result to the user. When the difference is extracted, the method gives a plurality of meta data related to each program the order of priority based on information of user's taste and compares the meta data corresponding to each other and extracts an upward compatible program based on the order of priority and the comparison result.