Company Town

Television: Paramount Television Ltd. in Britain is bidding on the license for Channel 5, the fifth and last broadcast channel expected to be auctioned by British regulators. Paramount joins a group headed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Communications Ltd. that also includes Philips Electronics. The group is going up against two other consortiums, one headed by Pearson, which owns the Financial Times of London, and another by Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB, which has as partners PolyGram, Telecommunications Inc. and Goldman Sachs. NBC also has been rumored to be interested in the license, which could require an investment of about $300 million, according to analysts.