The new channel, which will be broadcast free, is the first major announcement from Virgin Media since its launch in February and the loss of the Sky basic package, which has lost Virgin Media thousands of customers.
Virgin One will be launched in autumn and mix newly commissioned and acquired programming with user-generated content and content from Virgin Media pay-TV channels.
Virgin Media is set to announce a series of programme acquisitions, understood to include some US programming following the recent series of upfronts in Los Angeles last month.
Jonathan Webb, managing director of Virgin Media TV, formerly Flextech, is understood to be heading up the channel along with Celia Taylor, who has been appointed director of programming. She will take on the new channel alongside her current responsibilities for Bravo, Bravo 2, Challenge and Trouble, and report to Claudia Rosencrantz, director of television at Virgin Media TV.
The channel will also be available to cable subscribers to Virgin Media services.
Webb said: "I want Virgin One and the newly reinvigorated LivingTV to be two of the top television channels by switchover. Virgin One will shake up multi-channel and free-to-air TV, and start liberating viewers from the linear schedule.
"It will be a creative tour de force and a cutting-edge example of any time, any place content. Virgin Media TV has huge support from Virgin Media and Richard Branson, who agree that Virgin One is what UK audiences have been waiting for."
In February, Sky said it had plans to launch a digital terrestrial television subscription service, which will offer entertainment and Premiership football.
The new service, which was originally due to launch this summer, will allow customers to receive some of Sky's most popular programmes -- including sport and movies -- through a conventional rooftop aerial and a separate set-top box for a monthly subscription. The new set-top box is set to include software and a new decoder.
Sky's service would make use of existing capacity that Sky currently uses to broadcast its Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News channels on Freeview..jpg)
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