Sharewatch: Trinity Dips Ahead Of Upbeat Results

Newspaper giant Trinity Mirror dipped yesterday, sliding 1.91% to close at 617p. The company today revealed that an upturn in advertising had pushed revenues for the first four months of the year up by nearly 5%.

Chairman of Trinity Mirror, Sir Victor Blank, will deliver the good news at the companys annual general meeting later today. Prior to the meeting he said: “We stated that the improving trend in advertising seen in the final quarter of 2003 had continued into the first two months of 2004. We are pleased to report that this improvement has continued to date.”

BSkyB also suffered a fall yesterday as its share price dipped by 0.75% to 662˝p. On Tuesday the satellite heavyweight emerged as one of two companies attempting to resurrect failed digital horseracing channel Attheraces. A deal between Arena Leisure and BSkyB should see the channel back on television screens by next month (see Attheraces Back On Track With New Broadcasting Deal).

Financial Times owner, Pearson managed a rise yesterday, adding 0.82% to climb to 673˝p. The company recently announced that that it is on target to hit full-year profit forecasts as advertising revenues for flagship newspaper begin to recover (see Financial Times Sees Advertising Revenue Recover).

The FTSE 100 closed up 0.5% yesterday at 4,569.5, while the FTSE 250 struggled, slipping 0.2% yesterday to close at 6,218.8.

The closing prices of media company shares on Wednesday were:

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