Living TV Group - Telewest/NTL/Virgin 2000-2008

Telewest/NTL/Virgin 2000-2008

Flextech continued to expand under Telewest ownership with UKTV continuing to expanded its network of channels with the BBC, plus a new venture which saw a shopping channel come into operation in Autumn 2000. In 2003 Flextech restructured its marketing department resulting in overall responsibility for the marketing of its channels to the channel controllers which oversaw creative solutions put together by central in-house marketers who worked with existing agencies, including Banc. The new marketing strategy was also used as a forerunner for the companies newest channel Ftn which launched in January 2003 on the Freeview platform. This was followed by Living TV receiving a new on-screen look and additional channel Living 2 which specialised in reality and entertainment television. During the Spring of 2004, United Business Media and RTL, which both held shares in Five, held talks with Flextech about merging the advertising sales teams of Five and Flextech's channels together, but came to nothing.

In 2005 Telewest, in preparation for its long-awaited merger with NTL, put Flextech up for sale as the companies agreed "a content provider" had no place within the merged operation. A lot of interest was generated by the sale which included RTL, Hallmark Channel, ITV, Time Warner and Viacom. It become clear the BBC had the right to veto any change in ownership of Flextech's stake in the UKTV joint venture, which lead to further speculation that Flextech's assets may have ended up being split. NTL also completed matters by stating it would be reluctant to see any of Flextech's channels in the hands of terrestrial broadcasters such as ITV or Five. The underlying fear is that a terrestrial broadcaster could use Flextech to bolster the digital terrestrial platform and its appeal to viewers. Commercial terrestrial players have found that the popularity of Freeview has worked to their advantage, as viewers have fewer channels to choose from than on pay-TV platforms.

By September nearly all the bidders had pulled out except for BSkyB, but later pulled out of the deal over number of fears including the Competition Commission investigating the sale. Media analysis at the time did not believe the sale was genuine, although five other bidders including RTL and ITV did mark an interest. Simon Duffy, NTL's chief executive, stated "Flextech remains a key focus". Shortly afterwards Flextech appointed Jonathan Webb to replace Lisa Opie as managing director; Jonathan Webb was responsible for moving Challenge away from its staple of game shows and axing Bravo's "laddism" strategy.

In November 2006 NTL:Telewest began rebranding itself as Virgin Media. The group acquired Virgin Mobile in July, but went further by licensing the "Virgin" name, as they believed "Virgin Media would shake up the market by bringing the Virgin traditions of value-for-money, brilliant customer service and innovation to the world of entertainment and communications". As part of the rebrand, Flextech was also renamed as Richard Branson was keen to move into branded content and insisted that the Flextech business was retained as a condition of NTL buying Virgin Mobile and licensing the name. On 8 February 2007, Flextech was renamed Virgin Media Television as part of a larger re-branding exercise covering the whole of NTL:Telewest, Virgin Mobile and Virgin.net.