BSkyB tops bids for rival Virgin channels

British Sky Broadcasting has emerged as the highest bidder for a clutch of seven digital TV channels owned by Virgin Media including Virgin One, Bravo, Living and Challenge.

Sky is reported by the Financial Times to have offered £160 million for the package far outstripping offers of around £100 million from rivals such as Channel 4, Time Warner, Channel 5 owner RTL and NBC Universal. It is also in excess of the £100 million to £130 million analysts had suggested the channels might be worth. The offer will cause a dilemma for Virgin, which is desperately trying to reduce its £5.9 billion debt mountain.

Virgin and Sky are bitter rivals despite the fact that the former is largely a cable broadcaster while Sky is on satellite.

Two years ago, they had a fierce row over how much to charge each other to broadcast each other's stations. At that point Sky argued that the content of Virgin Media TV was almost worthless to its subscribers.