system and methods for formatting a virtual channel are provides in which , responsive to a user selection of a plurality of time - bounded multimedia events , there is formatted for display the plurality of time - bounded multimedia events in a first virtual channel . the user is enabled to fill a first time slot in the first virtual channel with overlapping time - bounded multimedia events from the plurality of time - bounded multimedia events . a representation of a numeric count of the overlapping time - bounded multimedia events is formatted for display in the first time slot .