Carriage wars

If you were to say there's more going on than meets the eye in the flare-up between UKTV and Virgin Media, then I wouldn't demur.

From Sunday, customers of Virgin Media could see ten broadcast channels from UKTV - W, Dave, Gold, Alibi, Drama, Yesterday, Eden, Really, Good Food, Home - disappear from their electronic programme guide. UKTV says Virgin is trying to pay less for the channels. Virgin Media says the UKTV side (50% owned by BBC Studios, nee Worldwide) is cutting on-demand access to programmes in the BBC archive.

Both could be true. But in the background, the BBC is trying to establish an alternative to Netflix with ITV and C4, and probably needs to hang on to more good stuff than it used to 'give away' through UKTV.