Updated below: Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI), the TV and online company, is finally putting its UK utility comparison site uSwitch on the block, after repeated rumors about it for the last year or so. It has hired Allen & Co to help in the sale process. With the market being difficult enough, it is in some urgency to offload it, so much so that it took the unusual step of issuing a press release about it. SNI, which was spun off the main E W Scripps company last year, bought uSwitch in 2006 for about $344 million.

This comes after a $244 million writeoff for its comparison shopping engine Shopzilla earlier this year. IN Q407, Scripps had already recorded a non-cash charge of $411 million, for “impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets” for uSwitch. A history of uSwitch, here on Wikipedia.

Maybe they should to sell it to the same PE firm that bought Kelkoo off Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) earlier this year. Whoever the buyer is, the price is likely to be a lot less that what Scripps paid for it, that’s for sure.

And even though the company insists this new development will have no bearing on Shopzilla, meaning it isn’t for sale officially, expect some change in that during the second half of the year.

Updated: There might be more to the off-handed comment I made above about Kelkoo’s buyer looking at uSwitch. I didn’t make the connection before, but the little-known PE firm Jamplant that bought Kelkoo last year was founded by, surprise surprise, the founder of uSwitch, Lord Milford Haven, who as it turns out, is also a cousin of the Queen. He made enough money from his sale of uSwitch, as much as 100 million GBP at the time, according to reports. The speculation swirling around London circles tonight was that he may come in, with the idea of combining a general shopping comparison side, Kelkoo, with the utilities comparison site and harness the efficiencies as a result. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy or that quick, or for that matter, that cheap: that’s why Scripps hired Allen & Co. Lets see…more as we find out more.