With nearly 1,000 titles and more than 100 content providers, Hulu, the joint video venture from News Corp. and NBCU, has begun rolling out channels to better categorize the shows and movies that appear on the site.

While the genre-based channels, which range from "reality" to "comedy," should go a long way to helping improve the user experience, the categorization is also seen as an advertising opportunity. For example, Splenda is already sponsoring Hulu's "food and leisure" channel.

The decision to offer channels follows on news from Hulu that it would begin allowing users to choose their own ads.