BBC Worldwide seeks to buy UKTV from Virgin

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 10-Dec-07, 10:50

LONDON - BBC Worldwide is trying to buy out Virgin Media's share of UKTV, the broadcasting joint venture between the two companies, according to a report.

The Sunday Telegraph claims that BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, recently made a preliminary approach to Virgin.

UKTV owns eight branded channels on cable and satellite and recently launched its first Freeview channel, Dave, offering a line-up of BBC shows including 'The Catherine Tate Show' and 'Top Gear'.

It forms part of Virgin Media's content division, Virgin Media Television, which also includes wholly owned channels such as Bravo, Living TV and Virgin 1.

Before the merger of cable companies NTL and Telewest that led to the creation of Virgin Media, the content division belonged to Telewest and was known as Flextech.

In 2005, there was an aborted auction of Flextech that valued the company at over £1bn. Bidders were reported to include BBC Worldwide, BSkyB, RTL, Time Warner, Viacom and Discovery Communications.

Virgin Media's investment in UKTV is valued on the company's books at £370m, including a £150m loan.

BBC Worldwide has been expanding aggressively, increasing the number of channels it operates around the world and introducing advertising to the BBC.com international website, with the aim of returning cash to the BBC.

Earlier this year, it bought travel guide company Lonely Planet.