Disney Is Among Winners of British Broadcast Rights : Entertainment: The Burbank firm is part of a group that wins new TV franchises. But a consortium including NBC loses out.

British TV viewers are going to get a dash of Disney with their morning bowl of Weetabix as a result of new commercial television franchises awarded here Wednesday.

Sunrise Television, a consortium that includes Walt Disney Co. Ltd. and several British media companies, won the lucrative contract to broadcast a commercial breakfast-time program across Britain, seven days a week. The license covers a 10-year period starting Jan. 1, 1993.

The franchises were awarded through an auction system, and Sunrise vastly outbid TV-am, the company that now holds the national morning TV franchise. But it just squeaked past a consortium that included a unit of General Electric subsidiary NBC.

TVS Entertainment--the company whose fortunes went into decline after buying the troubled U.S. production company MTM Entertainment for $320 million in 1988--lost its regional franchise, which covered a wealthy portion of southern England.

All 16 franchises in the commercial Independent Television network system--15 regions and the breakfast program--were at stake in the licensing competition. ITV companies generally not only broadcast shows but feed them to others in the system.

Companies that had hoped to win--or retain--one of the coveted franchises had to submit secret bids to the quasi-governmental Independent Television Commission last May. Under the plan, franchises were to be awarded to the companies willing to pay the highest annual sum to the government--provided they could pass a somewhat vague “quality threshold” test and present an acceptable business plan.

Although the murky nature of the process brought widespread criticism, competition was fierce, as 40 groups bid for the 16 coveted slots.

Despite the auction arrangement, only eight of the 16 franchises were awarded to the highest bidders. Two incumbents--including TVS--were rejected for bidding too high, because officials believed that they would not be viable under such a heavy financial burden.

There were no such problems in determining a winner for the breakfast television franchise.

The three bidders all passed the quality threshold, so the award went to Sunrise, which pledged to pay the British government $59.1 million a year over the 10-year license. That bid provided a heartbreaking loss for the NBC’s consortium, Daybreak Television, which bid $56.7 million.