Off-tune Capital's touch of the Tarrant terrors

STAR presenter Chris Tarrant has five months remaining of his £1.3m contract and

The 1.5m listeners of his breakfast show on 95.8FM believe it will be virtually impossible to replace a man credited with bringing in 15% of the station's profits.

Recent attempts to poach rival Bam Bam, real name Peter Poulton, from London dance floor music station Kiss 100 failed despite a £1.2m carrot.

City investors have begun to switch off Capital again because of the growing uncertainty. The shares fell 15p to 490p after broker Bridgewell downgraded its current year pretax profits forecast from £23.7m to £21.7m and reiterated its underweight stance.

Analyst Patrick Yau believes tomorrow's second-quarter figures are likely to show continuing erosion of Capital's London audience share and stagnant growth outside London.

Capital has admitted that advertising revenues booked at the beginning of July - usually at 75%-80% of capacity - have fallen to 70%.

Yau puts part of the decline down to pricing pressure, where Capital may be following Emap in reducing airtime rates. The new Communications Act was passed last Thursday, but Yau says there has been little or no discussion between radio companies about corporate activity in the short term.

Meanwhile, dealers said the timing of yesterday's high-level management restructuring and departure of Andria Vidler, who effectively ran the flagship London station, is ominous. 'It looks like an attempt to pre-empt poor figures,' said one fund manager.

A surprise slump in US consumer confidence prompted an early 97-point fall on Wall Street, which dragged the Footsie down. It closed 11.8 points easier at 4137.0.

The headline index of consumer confidence in July slid to 76.6 from 83.5, the lowest since March.

Prudential's (14 3/4p easier at 420p) drastic 40% dividend cut was no surprise, but still left other insurance-stocks in the doghouse. Aviva fell 13p to 484 3/4p and Legal & General 2p to 96 1/2p.

Centrica, Britain's biggest household energy supplier, improved 3/4p to 179p. Speculation persists that it will accompany tomorrow's interims with news of the proposed sale of its loss-making financial services arm, Goldfish.

LloydsTSB, which reports interims on Friday, is tipped to fork out about £100m for the 70% of Goldfish it does not already own.

Construction company Carillion lost 4p to 151p after wheeling out another big contract. It has won a national total facilities management contract for TeleWest Broadband, valued at £90m.

Marketing services group Creston gained 7 1/2p to 86p on the bullish tenor of chairman David Marshall's agm statement. He reported continued strong trading in the first quarter across the board.

Photo-Me International, which operates automatic photo-booths, improved 2 1/2p to 104 1/2p. Broker Evolution Beeson Gregory is a fan and says the company is extremely well placed to capitalise on the digital camera revolution. Its three- month target price is 125p.

After its acquisition of a diamond project in the Kaapvaal region of South Africa, Aim-listed mining group Petra Diamonds added 3 1/2p at 32p.

Minco jumped 23/8p to 7 1/4p after a private placing of 2.5m shares at 5p to raise £123,000. Directors John Teeling and James Finn each subscribed for 616,645 shares.

Strong buying on recovery hopes helped Scipher edge forward 3/4p to 9 1/4p. It recently raised £7.6m and has resources to reach break-even in 2005.

Still reflecting the proposed financial restructuring, security minnow Orbis hardened 5/8p more to 17/8p.

NXT, the flat speaker company, shed 7p to 134p on a proposed one-for-five rights issue at 70p to raise £10m. The cash will help strengthen the balance sheet.

DEFEATIST comments by superstar Robbie Williams in an interview are bound to send shockwaves through the London headquarters of EMI. His decision to 'pull the plug' on his attempt to break into the US market will not be music to chairman Eric Nicoli's ears. Williams signed an £80m four-album deal that made success in the US imperative. EMI paid Mariah Carey millions after she bombed. The close was 1 1/2p up at 146p.