Millions of homes are due to be cut off from some of Britain’s most popular television channels this weekend after Virgin Media labelled the BBC a “dinosaur” with a “broken business model” in a bitter row over fees for UKTV, the broadcaster behind Dave and Gold.

Ten channels run by UKTV, which is jointly owned by the BBC and Discovery, will be switched off in cable homes at midnight on Saturday and replaced in menus with new services.

The blackout is due to be imposed after weeks of wrangling over the fees Virgin Media pays to carry the channels. It is expected to cost UKTV in the region of £50m in lost fees and advertising revenue per year.

Virgin Media, which has nearly four million pay-TV subscribers, said it had walked away because the BBC had refused to include in the deal rights to watch its programmes on demand. UKTV produces some of its own programmes but BBC repeats are the bedrock of most of its schedules.

David Bouchier, Virgin Media’s entertainment chief, said the BBC was refusing to allow UKTV to provide on-demand access to Dave stalwarts such as Top Gear because it wants to use its vast programming archive to create a rival to Netflix and charge pay-TV operators for it separately.