Reality bites for Alli as dividends dive

LABOUR'S favourite media peer saw profits at his company soar last year, but Lord Alli's income from Castaway Television Productions, which made the reality TV show Survivor, fell sharply.

Waheed Alli, who became the youngest life peer when he joined the Labour benches in 1998, received £600,000 in dividends in 2004, down from £1m the year before.

His fellow directors, Live Aid founder Bob Geldof and television producer Charlie Parsons, also saw their dividends fall from £1m to £600,000.

Geldof, Parsons and Alli sold an earlier company, Planet 24, to Carlton Communications for £15m in 1999.

Parsons received executive producer fees from Castaway totalling £1.5m for the year ending last March, down on the £2.7m he was paid the previous year.

The figures are revealed in the latest accounts from Castaway, which showed that profits rocketed 90% to £3.8m last March.

Alli, 40, a close friend of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, is chairman of Chorion, the stock market-listed media group that owns the rights to children's favourite Noddy.