Google Inc. is intended to expand the YouTube’s auditory and will create around 100 online video channels that will have new original programming from such celebrities as Madonna, Jay-Z, Ashton Kutcher and Shaquille O’Neal. 

Photo: a snapshot from YouTube.com

To produce about 25 hours of new, original programming a day, YouTube will partner with dozens of media companies, Hollywood production companies, and online-video creators. The majority of the roughly 100 channels will launch next year.

Madonna is to be involved in a dance-related channel, and Jay-Z is to produce content related to his Life + Times website, says the WSJ. Other celebs involved in the venture include wellness guru Deepak Chopra, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, and Rainn Wilson of ‘The Office,’ who will be featured in a comedy channel.

Google hopes that YouTube will become a next-generation video provider and give some content creators 55% of the resulting ad revenue after YouTube compensates the cash advances it paid them.

Google announced the YouTube channels on Friday and on the same day and on the same day the company said it upgrades its Google TV software so that users could watch web video on their TV screens. Google representatives have said the company isn’t trying to replace TV or cable, but merely to complement it. In addition, on Friday YouTube broadcasted the live reopening ceremony of Moscow Bolshoi Theatre that has undergone a big renovation.

The channels will embrace 19 categories such as pop culture, sports, music and health, entertainment tailored to African-Americans and Hispanics, animal lovers, mothers, teens, and home-and-garden enthusiasts. The first channels will start broadcasting already this fall. The video content will remain exclusive to YouTube for 18 months, and the creators can take their content off YouTube after three years.

Not only celebrities such as actors or singers will be involved into the project, but the media magnates such as Hearst Corp., Thomson Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp will become the partners for news- and culture-related channels. A fashion channel on YouTube will involve magazines Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Harper’s Bazaar.

YouTube has also launched movies rental service in the UK, following the same initiative in the US and Canada.

The announcement with sneak previews can be viewed here.