Virgin Media's attempt to sell its wholly-owned television channels has been called to a halt following an initial review in October and it now seems certain Virgin will try and package up a deal to sell its owned stations and its half of the UKTV joint venture.

The company's advisors have valued its channels – including Living, Bravo and Trouble — at £160m (E175m) and its half-share of UKTV at £300 million. Virgin Media had narrowed down the bidders for its wholly-owned channels to three: Viacom, Time Warner, and BSkyB.

These bidders and others are being sounded out on a deal for the package – Virgin just has to hope the BBC doesn't exercise its right to veto the buyer. UKTVs channels are essentially made up of BBC repeats.

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