The NCC said that the move "will be to the detriment of viewers and their trust in the quality and integrity of UK broadcasting... This included a £1.1m boost from the sale of a surplus site, in Ipswich, which it handed back to shareholders in the form of an additional 1p a share on top of its 3p final dividend.Shares in the group, which this month signed a deal to make taxis in China, surged 7 per cent to 526.5p.Tim Melville-Ross, the chairman, said current vehicle sales were ahead of last year when UK taxi sales slipped as drivers waited to learn what form the new emissions regime would take. There is a fundamental and irreconcilable gap between advertisers' ultimate expectations of 'prominent' product placement, and viewers' concerns about... The BBC, which is not funded by advertising, also lobbied against relaxing the rules on product placement, saying it "could significantly damage the editorial integrity of programmes". Equity, the trade union for actors and others in the entertainment industry, warned that the US experience showed that product placement could turn to "the increasingly insidious use of product integration".Ofcom published responses to its consultation exercise on whether the ban on product placement in the UK should be eased or lifted. The media watchdog was responding to a proposal made by the European Commission late last year to prohibit product placement.The UK's commercial broadcasters told Ofcom that the restrictions should go; such a move could be worth up to £100m a year to UK broadcasters.The biggest commercial broadcaster, ITV, said: "For ITV, product placement would not only provide an additional (if modest) source of revenue, but would also help us to maintain current advertiser investment in television against other competing media."As part of the 360-degree view that advertisers are increasingly seeking, product placement would allow us to build better relationships with advertisers... This, in turn, could mean higher fares for passengers or subsidies from government to train operators to cover the increased access charge.Network Rail will get a clearer idea of whether there will be funding available next spring when the Government publishes its "high level output" statement - a menu of which rail projects it wants to see go ahead.First Group won a new nine-year franchise earlier this year to operate the Thameslink service, which has now been renamed First Capital Connect, after agreeing to pay the Government £809m in premiums.
The route runs from Brighton to Bedford via Gatwick and Luton airports.Approval for the scheme heightens the chances of the Gatwick Express franchise, currently held by National Express, being scrapped because First Group will be able to offer an improved service into central London.. Consumer groups have come out strongly against allowing advertisers to pay for their products to be featured within television programmes, in response to a consultation on the issue undertaken by the media regulator Ofcom. If it goes ahead, the upgrade will start in 2008 and take seven years to complete, but Network Rail said many of the improvements in services north of the river would be ready in time for the 2012 London Olympics.The Thameslink project accounts for nearly half the £7.9bn Network Rail proposes to spend on enhancements between 2009 and 2014. The options for the Government are either to fund it directly with capital grants or allow Network Rail to borrow the money and then cover its costs through the access charges it levies on train operators. Rail executives are confident that the decision to grant planning permission means the upgrade will go ahead, even though it will end up being built 14 years late. John Armitt, the chief executive of Network Rail, described the announcement as a "landmark decision". The upgrade will more-than double capacity on one of Europe's busiest rail routes - the corridor between London Bridge station south of the Thames and Farringdon to the north - and more than treble the number of stations served by direct north-south services to 172.Blackfriars and Farringdon stations will be rebuilt, London Bridge will be extensively enlarged and 12-carriage trains will replace the existing eight-carriage ones.
Manganese Bronze, which is still searching for a new chief executive, has spent £5m on developing the TX4. It hopes to recoup the cost by charging an extra £2,000 for each new cab.Pre-tax profits, excluding the site sale, rose 29 per cent to £2.5m on revenue down 4 per cent to £83.8m. Since signing its deal with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, it has dropped plans to enter the Mexican and US markets.. A £3.5bn scheme to ease rail congestion in central London moved a big step forward yesterday after the Government announced it was granting Network Rail legal powers and planning permission to build the Thameslink upgrade. Funding for the long-delayed project has not yet been agreed and will depend on the settlement the company comes to next year with the Department for Transport. The jobless rate has risen by 1.5 percentage points or 77,000 people over the past year.London also has the lowest employment rate of any region in Britain at 69.8 per cent, against the national average of 74.6 per cent.An unemployment map shows the capital like a doughnut - a ring of modest rates of joblessness encircling boroughs with soaraway unemployment. Tower Hamlets, the borough that includes the job-rich financial district of Canary Wharf, tops the table at 11.3 per cent with neighbouring Hackney on 10.5 per cent.Leafy Richmond-upon-Thames is the lowest, on 4.1 per cent.Philip Thornton.
