Virgin Media delays UKTV sale

Virgin Media has delayed the sale of its £353 million stake in UKTV on the open market.

The cable group, which owns a 50% share of UKTV, is stalling while it considers restarting the sale of its entire content division as one entity, according to reports.

Virgin Media’s complete content division is made up of its 50% UKTV stake and VMtv, which owns channels such as Living and Bravo.

In April, the company formally started proceedings to dispose of its content operation, selling off the two assets as separate businesses.

It has already sold its TV shopping channels operation Sit-up TV to the German-based company Aurelius.

However, Virgin Media is understood to be planning to issue a new sales memorandum for UKTV and VMtv as one asset.

Previous reports suggested that Virgin was hoping to sell its UKTV stake to BBC Worldwide, which owns the other 50% share of the business.  However, no deal has been announced.