Virgin Media’s attempt to sell its £160 million wholly-owned television channels has stalled as the cable company assesses whether it could raise more cash by pursuing an alternative plan.

The company is considering whether to sell the channels — including Living, Bravo and Trouble — together with its £300 million half-share in UKTV, its television joint venture with the BBC, which is behind Dave. Bundling the two together would help Virgin Media to generate more cash; otherwise, the stake in UKTV had been expected to be sold in parts to the BBC and Channel 4, both of which lack the resources for a highly priced bid.

Virgin Media had narrowed down the bidders for its wholly-owned channels, grouped together under the VMTV tag, to three: Viacom, owner of MTV; Time Warner, the owner of CNN; and BSkyB, which is 39.1 per cent-owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times.

Bankers involved with the process say that progress on a sale has been halted, while bidders for the channels have been sounded out as to whether they would be interested in going for UKTV as well. It has been the most successful multichannel broadcaster of recent years.

Run by David Abraham, who is seen as a credible candidate to become chief executive of Channel 4, UKTV, which primarily airs BBC repeats, successfully rebranded its stable of channels. Sky had submitted what was widely thought to be the highest bid for VMTV several months ago, but Virgin Media is reluctant to sell to its principal competitor. Neither Viacom nor Time Warner has a large broadcast business in the UK and could attract only modest local synergies.

Virgin Media declined to comment on the process, but the company has indicated repeatedly that it does not believe that the business of owning channels to be a core activity for a company focused on high-speed broadband.

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