BBC AND TELEWEST TO FLOAT UK TV

THE BBC and Telewest are considering plans to float their joint venture UK TV, which operates cable television channels.
Greg Dyke, the BBC director general, and Adam Singer, chief executive of Telewest, have held discussions about the possibility of a UK TV flotation, but the plans remain at a very early stage.
A public offering of UK TV is being looked at as a way to raise money for the public service broadcaster as it seeks to develop more television content for its future cable channels. It would also help finance Telewest's aims to provide broadband, interactive programming.
Singer suggested that both men were sympathetic to the idea, as it would help fund their digital ambitions. He said: “There is clearly a possibility out there in the future of taking UK TV public.”
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Singer suggested that a flotation could help raise as much as £200m for both the BBC and Telewest.
There was no official comment from the BBC, but executives acknowledged that this was one of a number of options Dyke was considering as he looks to meet the funding shortfall between the BBC's spending plans and licence fee revenues.
Culture Secretary Chris Smith raised the BBC's licence fee revenues by 1.5 per cent over inflation for the next seven years, but left the organisation to find an extra £1.1bn from cost savings and alternative sources of revenue.
Dyke said last week he was intending to increase commercial income from BBC Worldwide, which is responsible for the UK TV joint venture. He said: “We're also looking at whether there are more commercial opportunities in the world of new media than we're presently exploiting but that review is not yet complete.”
UK TV, which was created as a 50-50 joint venture between the BBC and Flextech, the cable television group taken over by Telewest earlier this year, includes six cable channels; among them UK Gold, and UK Horizons, a documentary channel.
Telewest intended to spend £30m to improve customer services, consolidating the number of call centres from 14 to five. The company will also ensure in the future that a live operator, rather than an electronic voice answers calls.
Singer claimed that the delay in the digital roll-out was a result of a problem facing the whole industry, which was struggling to deal with a shortage of chips for digital set-top boxes.