Sharewatch: Highbury Up Despite Negative Statement

Publishing group Highbury House Communications saw a strong performance last week, gaining 3.33% to close at 7žp on Friday, making them the leaders of last week’s market.

The group’s strong performance came despite a pessimistic trading statement earlier this year saying that the company would fail to meet financial expectations, resulting in them not paying an interim or final dividend. However, the company did have a positive first half of 2004, seeing a 24% jump in revenue.

Commercial radio group GWR saw the biggest drop in share price on the weekly market, losing 4.08% to close at 235p on Friday. The company is currently waiting for regulatory approval concerning its merger with Capital Radio (see Capital/GWR Merger Could Face Competition Enquiry).

Elsewhere, Satellite heavyweight BSkyB continued their downward trend, losing 3.20% to close at 551žp on Friday. The broadcaster recently announced plans to launch Sky Text, its digital text service on Freeview, hoping to tempt potential subscribers away from the free-to-air system with a further demonstration of its own-brand satellite content (see Sky To Launch Text Service On Freeview).

The closing prices of media company shares on Friday were: