U-verse shortcuts CAN be very useful if they were changed from their current approach. (Channel Shortcuts is just below Search in the Live TV section when you hit the MENU button.)

Specifically, it now appears that when you select a U-Verse shortcut (sports, movies, etc.) all you get are the CHANNELS for that genre of show – not PROGRAMS. U-Verse shortcuts ignores programs on local and other channels with a mixed format (i.e. movies sometimes, sports other times, etc.)

For instance, if you select the Sports shortcut, all you get are sports CHANNELS (i.e. 600-774  for such as ESPN, Golf, etc. on my TV).  HOWEVER, what you DO NOT get are any sports programs on local and other channels such as TNT, WGN etc. which might be carrying the NBA Finals, the NHL Finals, etc.

The same applies to movies – shortcuts gives a list of movie channels but nothing showing movies on other channels.

SOLUTION:  Program Channel Shortcuts to capture the genre of the program on ALL channels and show them when a specific shortcut is selected.

This should not be too hard to do since I expect all video supplers include it in their feeds. I would think that is how the ratings on movies are provided. Also, Comcast does this and I doubt that anyone at Comcast is sitting down and identifying every program as to genre.

Hopefully, this can be done fairly simply and quickly. It would make U-Verse a MUCH more friendly user interface.