Sky gets LIVING and Bravo as part of £160m deal for Virgin channels

BSkyB has bought Virgin Media’s UK channels including LIVING and Bravo. Sky will pay £160 million for the VMtv channel portfolio with £105 million going to Virgin upon completion of the deal and the remainder when it gets its final regulatory clearance.

The full bouquet of Virgin channels is: LIVING, LIVINGit, Challenge, Challenge Jackpot, Bravo, Bravo 2 and Virgin1.

News Corp.-backed UK pay TV operator Sky said it will not market the Virgin1 channel, meaning a rebrand for the general entertainment channel in due course.

As part of the deal there is a new carriage deal between Sky and Virgin that gives that latter all of Sky’s basic channels as well as the option to take Sky’s HD channels for the first time.

Virgin, which was expected to sell the channels to Sky, will also make content from the Sky channels available on its on-demand service.