The selectedBackgroundView modifies the contentView subviews

set cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone and override

- (void)setHighlighted:(BOOL)highlighted animated:(BOOL)animated {
  if(highlighted) {
    self.contentView.backgroundColor = colorYouWantWhenHighlighted;
  } else {
    self.contentView.backgroundColor = colorYouWantWhenUnhighlighted;
  }
}

UITableViewCell does two things automatically when highlighted/selected:

1. Set all its subviews' backgroundColor to clear color(transparent).
2. Highlight all subviews that can be highlighted, for example, UIImageView.

To prevent the first problem, you have to override these two methods in your UITableViewCell subclass:

- (void)setHighlighted:(BOOL)highlighted animated:(BOOL)animated {
    [super setHighlighted:highlighted animated:animated];
    if (highlighted) {
        // Recover backgroundColor of subviews.
    }
}

- (void)setSelected:(BOOL)selected animated:(BOOL)animated {
    [super setSelected:selected animated:animated];
    if (selected) {
        // Recover backgroundColor of subviews.
    }
}