“Wire TV was a courageous investment but the time is right to hand it on to real TV people who can develop and grow it,” he said.The deal does not include the Sportswire programming, which will be retained by CCP-1.. It has recruited Janet Street-Porter, the former head of BBC youth programming, to head the channel.Mirror is already teaming up with Midland Independent Newspapers to produce local programming in Birmingham and has recently acquired a stake in Scottish Television.A spokesman for the Cable Television Association said channels such as Live TV would deliver programmes aimed specifically at a UK audience rather than the US/international fare dominating cable schedules. Under the deal, Mirror TV is expected to end Wire’s programming and replace it with that provided by Live TV.
Live TV will become an entertainment-led, round-the-clock channel, offering a mix of features and information together with news broadcasts. Mirror Television, a Mirror Group subsidiary, is to buy Wire TV, Britain’s first nationwide cable television channel, for an undisclosed sum.

The deal will give Mirror Group’s Live TV access to nearly all the UK’s 4.5 million cable television subscribers when the channel launches in the summer. Wire TV was set up by CCP-1, a consortium of cable operators including Nynex, US West and Comcast, but has struggled to provide a popular range of programming. The directors said they would review the level of the final dividend.Casket’s directors, led by Joe Smith, chief executive, were thought to be buying shares in the company yesterday.. The Townsend business, which moved to a new factory last year, experienced operational difficulties.The group’s textiles business also performed badly as a result of the warmer autumn weather.Casket, which claims to be the second-largest bicycle producer behind Raleigh, says it increased its share of the British market from 26 to 29 per cent but did so at the expense of lower levels of profitability.The company said it planned to continue its expansion in the bicycle market while reducing its exposure in the textile sector.

It is thought to have lost about £2m.In Britain, bicycle sales were down last year to 1.9 million units compared with 2.1 million the year before. Casket said problems at its German subsidiary and a poorer-than-expected Christmas in Britain meant the company would show only a “modest profit” for the full year to March. Brokers had been expecting profits of £2.8m but Panmure Gordon downgraded its forecast to just £250,000.
A 20 per cent decline in the German market in the past year has hit Casket’s German subsidiary, Heidemann Fahrrad, acquired in 1993. Shares in Casket, the Claude Butler and British Eagle bicycle manufacturer, slumped to an all-time low of 14.5p yesterday after it issued its second profits warning in seven months. Growth in leisure and service would soon make it Granada’s second most profitable area ahead of rental and computer services.Mr Robinson said that following the flotation of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB, Granada’s 10.8 per cent stake was worth around £450m compared with its book value of £70m.. The vending machines divisions Vendepac and Flavorpac are also up for sale.Speaking at Granada’s annual meeting yesterday, Gerry Robinson, chief executive, said The Catering Guild would provide a comfortable fit with Sutcliffe, where profit margins had risen to 8.8 per cent in the first quarter, with sales up 9 per cent.Mr Robinson said last year’s purchase of London Weekend Television would see television become the group’s largest profit earner.

Last month Gallaher put its Forbouys newsagent chain and Prestige saucepans businesses on the block. The group will be absorbed into Granada’s Sutcliffe subsidiary, which was acquired in 1993.
The sale is the latest in a string of disposal announcements by Gallaher, which intends to concentrate on its distilling and tobacco businesses, which include Whyte & Mackay whisky and the Benson & Hedges, Silk Cut and Hamlet tobacco brands. Granada is paying £5.5m for the business, which has 115 service contracts and sales of £15m. Gallaher, the liquor and tobacco group, continued its strategy of unloading peripheral businesses yesterday when it sold The Catering Guild contract catering division to Granada, the television and leisure company. Car stereos also sold well in the quarter and sales of CD players and the Walkman continued to grow..

The company will have to expect that some of our members will raise the issue of this new contract with them.”The NAPF issued a briefing paper in December, called Directors Service Contracts, which said that initial contracts of three years are acceptable if they are fixed, and then after the initial three years they should become one-year rolling contracts. Mr Rogers added: “A concern with rolling contracts is that they just roll on and remuneration committees don’t review them.”A spokesman for the Institute of Directors said: “We don’t comment on particular cases.” He did, however, draw attention to guidelines issued by the IoD in January. These state that directors’ contracts should be no longer than two years, whether fixed or rolling.Mr Siddall, who comes from Balfour Beatty, the BICC subsidiary, will take up his new post as finance director in April. He is a replacement for John Astall, who left the company abruptly in late October.. Manweb, the regional electricity distributor, came under fire yesterday from shareholder groups over its recruitment of its new finance director, Stuart Siddall, on a three-year rolling contract. Three-year rolling contracts have been increasingly attacked in recent months because they result in large pay-offs to sacked directors.
John Rogers, secretary of the National Association of Pension Funds investment committee, said: “There does seem to be a forming consensus that contracts should not be greater than one year. However, Mersey still benefited because many cargo contracts have guaranteed minimum payments.The number of vehicles handled at Sheerness fell by 11,000 to 346,000.However, the company has signed a 10-year deal with Volkswagen and Audi to handle imports from April, and Hyundai is to move 15,000 cars a year through the port..