Virgin Media meanwhile, the group’s cable TV operator, has said it is “well positioned for growth” after adding almost 5,000 new subscribers in the first quarter of 2008, although it is still operating at a loss of £5 million.

However, things are starting to hot-up in medialand. Five’s managing director Lisa Opie has resigned just as ITV’s Dawn Airey is set to rejoin the channel, followed by ITV receiving a record £5.7 million fine for its premium rate telephone abuse.

Elsewhere, market research specialist TNS, owner of Nielsen, raised eyebrows when it rejected a £948 million takeover offer from WPP, however with its share price now soaring and Sir Martin Sorrell still believed to be hovering, along with rival GfK, it now looks like a very savvy decision.

It was also the annual outing for the UK’s magazine industry too, providing the lobby of the Grosvenor House with a welcome splash of colour. The economic slowdown was among the pressing worries for publishers, alongside the potential public concern about the environmental impact of the business and the robustness of the NRS readership data.

In pitch news, mad.co.uk broke the scoop that Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO has snatched the £13 million advertising business for Pizza Hut, an account it lost to Wieden + Kennedy three years ago.

Trevor Beattie has been reunited with lingerie brand Gossard after Beattie McGuinness Bungary was awarded the business without a pitch. The man widely tipped with coining the traffic-stopping strapline "Hello boys" while at TBWA in the nineties will be hoping that lightening can strike twice.

Meanwhile, Tourism Australia has parted ways with its incumbent agency M&C Saatchi, leaving rival Saatchi and Saatchi to battle it out with DDB Worldwide.

And finally, for all of you who voted Boris Johnson as the new Major of London, he’s already swiftly repaid the favour by reiterating his intensions to slash advertising budgets for the Greater London Authority by £2 million.

Broadcasting veteran James Whale has perhaps paid the highest price, after being dismissed from TalkSport for actively supporting the Tory, his twilight years now look consigned to shopping channel Bid TV.

Have a great weekend. We’ll be back here on Monday with all the latest news relating to your business.