** Northern Ireland's UTV Media continues to climb aday after it said it may sell its TV franchise
** One of only two independent broadcasters in the ITVnetwork, UTV rises 8 pct, with more than a day's average volumetraded in the first hour and a half
** Stock second best performer on the FTSE All Share MediaIndex
** Belfast Telegraph reported on Saturday that UTV was dueto sell its television division to ITV Plc in amulti-million-pound deal (http://bit.ly/1Jesiem)
** Peel Hunt analyst Alex Degroote said on Monday that asale could fetch between 100 mln stg and 125 mln stg ($156 mlnand $195 mln)
** An ITV spokesman declined to comment on what he termed asspeculation
** UTV said on June 23 that it saw a deeper-than-expected FYloss at UTV Ireland, its new Republic of Ireland channel, asaudience growth stalled
** Stock has fallen 2.6 pct between June 22 and Friday'sclose
** ITV's stock was up 2 pct at 0844 GMT (Reuters Messaging:noor.hussain.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)