Sky shows to make a return to Virgin?

Lost, 24 and The Simpsons could come back

9 May 2008 12:25 GMT / By Katie Scott

Virgin Media customers could finally get all of the Sky channels back 18 months after a wrangle between the two companies saw the likes of Lost and 24 taken off air for them.

Reports on the internet suggest that top execs from both companies are sitting round a table to try and end the feud which started when Virgin accused BSkyB of raising its prices too high.

However, since then, new men have taken over the helms of both companies - Neil Berkett at Virgin and Jeremy Darroch at BSkyB.

And Berkett told the Daily Telegraph: "We are in dialogue. Both Jeremy Darroch and myself are saying that we'd like to do a deal. The unfortunate thing is we don't have a conclusion. I'd love to do a deal but we haven't done one yet".

This will bring some hope to Virgin Media customers who lost the Sky channels in February last year, prompting an exodus of customers to Sky.

Despite this, Virgin has just released first quarter
results, which showed it had added 37,000 cable TV customers during the first 3 months of 2008.

In separate news, rumours are flying around that BSkyB could be one of the bidders for Virgin Media Television, which Virgin Media is considering selling off.

BBC Worldwide is also mooted to be a possible bidder for the company which owns the Bravo, LivingTV and the UKTV channels.