Living TV Group
Living TV Group was a British television consortium originally called Flextech from 1988 before becoming a subsidiary of Virgin Media and renamed to Virgin Media Television. It was bought by BSkyB in 2010 and renamed to Living TV Group, after which it was integrated into Sky and closed down. Challenge is the only remaining TV channel of the group that is still broadcasting.
Living TV Group and its predecessors had several owned channels, available in the United Kingdom on terrestrial, satellite and cable television platforms and in Ireland on satellite and cable television. Living TV Group's advertising was handled by former sister company Interactive Digital Sales until 1 January 2011, when Sky Media took over.
History
Flextech (1990–2000)
Flextech began life as an oil services group, previously floated as an energy investment company back in 1983. After Roger Luard became chief executive in 1986, the company shifted focus into the media industry. Its first media acquisition was in 1990 with a 20% stake in programme producer/distributor HIT Communications; by October of that year, they had acquired a stake in The Children's Channel, when it bought a 25% holding in Starstream Ltd. from BT. By 1992, Flextech was a media-only group, having built up stakes in local cable operators by way of selling off its non-core assets.During the summer of 1993, Flextech entered into an agreement with International Family Entertainment, to launch a UK version of IFE's flagship property, The Family Channel. IFE had recently purchased much of the assets of the then-recently defunct TVS Entertainment, including most of TVS' library of shows and The Maidstone Studios, which became the main operational base for The Family Channel; this was a boon to Flextech, as the facility handled the channel's uplink, playout and management operations. In the autumn, talks were held with the US-based cable/media company Tele-Communications Inc. Under the original terms of the proposed deal, Flextech would have acquired TCI's European programming business in exchange for shares in TCI. By January 1994, the deal was complete, which allowed TCI to acquire 60.4% of Flextech, while Flextech acquired 100% of Bravo, 25% of UK Gold, 31% of UK Living, and 25% of The Children's Channel, increasing Flextech's control over that network.
The relationship between TCI and Flextech continued to grow; in February 1994, Flextech shareholders approved a deal in which Flextech absorbed the European programming interests of United Artists European Holdings. In return, UAEH's US parent, TCI, acquired 60% of the enlarged Flextech. Within days of the deal, Flextech brought a 20% stake in HTV for £27million. Within a year, the stake was transferred to Scottish Television as part of its deal to acquire a 20% stake in STV. As part of the deal, Flextech agreed to license the rights to over 125hours of the drama and documentary output from STV's library, as well as a production output agreement to commission television programmes from STV with a minimum total value of 6million pounds over three years.
In 1995, the company raised £92million after two new American companies invested in the company, US West and Hallmark ; the additional funds allowed Flextech to buy the remaining shares in The Children's Channel, gaining full control of the network.
Talks were held with BSkyB in the spring of 1996 over a potential merger of the two companies' pay-TV channels, with the aimed of a wholesale consolidation of the subscription market, which would have saved costs and created a dominant supplier of programmes in the UK subscription market and Europe. The deal ultimately came to nothing, but two years later, both companies agreed to allow Flextech's television channels to be broadcast on Sky's new digital platform. In June 1996, Flextech announced that United Artists Entertainment Limited would adopt its brand, becoming Flextech Television Ltd. in July. The company cited that the rebranding would avoid confusion between the two names and capitalise on their brand.
Elsewhere that year, it started discussions about increasing its stake in UK Gold to gain full control. At that point, Flextech held 27% with Cox, BBC and Pearson. By the autumn, Flextech had acquired Cox and Pearson's stakes, giving Flextech an 80% stake in UK Gold.
Also during 1996, talks began between Flextech and the BBC about a partnership to launch a new range of entertainment channels featuring programmes from the BBC's programme library. The deal was signed in March 1997 when the BBC and Flextech unveiled their new venture, which included BBC Showcase, an entertainment channel; BBC Horizon, documentaries; BBC Style, lifestyle; BBC Learning, for schools, and BBC Arena, for the arts, plus three other channels including BBC Sport, BBC Catch-Up, for repeats of popular programmes within days of their original transmission, and a TV version of BBC Radio 1. Initially, it was assumed that the new channels would be BBCbranded, but Flextech wanted the channels to carry advertisements. The BBC argued that BBC-branded services in the UK should not carry advertising and thought that this would undermine the rationale of the license fee in the UK. A compromise was reached when the BBC launched BBC Showcase and BBC Learning on its own, with the remainder of the deal passing to BBC Worldwide.
Eventually, the concept of the BBC/Flextech channels led the launch of UKTV in November 1997, with BBC Horizon becoming UK Horizons, BBC Style becoming UK Style and BBC Arena becoming UK Arena. The concept of a television version of BBC Radio 1 was reused for the UK Play channel, which launched in October 1998; the dedicated BBC Sport channel never materialised. UK Gold was relaunched as part of the new branding, whilst UK Living remained a separate network, due to the similarities of some of its programming with that of UK Style; prior to UKTV's launch, it was rebranded as Living to avoid confusion with the other UKTV channels. That year also saw The Family Channel relaunched in its current form as the game show-focused Challenge TV.
Flextech agreed to acquire Minotaur International for around $6.5million in 1999; Minotaur International was responsible for international sales of most programmes commissioned by Flextech. In 2007, Target Entertainment Group acquired Minotaur International and formed strategic alliances with Virgin Media Television to act as their preferred distribution partner.
In 1998, chief executive Roger Luard died, and Adam Singer became chief executive. In early December 1999, talks were convened about a merger between Telewest and Flextech, By 17 December 1999, the merger was agreed upon which created a £10.5bn media giant; Telewest shareholders owned 80% of the new group and Flextech shareholders owned 20%. The two companies fully merged on 19 April 2000.
Telewest/NTL/Virgin (2000–09)
Flextech continued to expand under Telewest ownership, with UKTV continuing to expand 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 with creative solutions put together by central in-house marketers who worked agencies including Banc and Karmarama. The new marketing strategy was also used as a forerunner for the company's 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 an additional channelLiving 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 this deal ultimately did not proceed.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; potential suitors included RTL, Hallmark Channel, ITV, Time Warner and Disney. However, it became clear the BBC had the right to veto any change in ownership of Flextech's stake in the UKTV joint venture, which led to further speculation that Flextech's assets may end up being split. NTL also complicated 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 was that a terrestrial broadcaster could use Flextech to bolster the digital terrestrial platform and its appeal to viewers. Commercial terrestrial players had found that the popularity of Freeview 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 they later pulled out of the deal over a 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 state 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 8February 2007, Flextech was renamed Virgin Media Television as part of a larger rebranding exercise covering the whole of NTL:Telewest, Virgin Mobile and Virgin.net.