Virgin Media’s TV interests including Living, Challenge, Bravo and Virgin 1 are to be rebranded following their sale to BSkyB.
VMtv becomes the Living TV Group following regulatory clearance in the Republic of Ireland. An initial £105 million (€126.23) is being paid by Sky to Virgin Media with a further £55 million due once regulatory clearance is forthcoming from the UK.
VMtv was previously known as Flextech Television and in the early days of UK cable United Artists Programming. The only surviving channel from that period is Bravo.
Living dates back to 1993 when as UK Living it was launched as a companion service to UK Gold.
The Virgin 1 name will be dropped after BSkyB chose not to license the brand from the Virgin group.
