THE Financial Times has halted the fall in its advertising revenues, the business newspaper’s owner revealed yesterday.

Pearson, the media group, releasing some of the best news about the recession-hit newspaper for some time, said: “Year-to-date advertising revenues at the Financial Times, which were down 4 per cent at the beginning of March, are now level with last year and forward bookings are a little ahead.”

Last year Pearson’s flagship daily suffered a £23 million fall in advertising revenues, helping to push losses up £9 million to £32 million.

Pearson, whose interests range from education to publishing, warned shareholders at the annual meeting that advertising remained volatile from week to week, but said that the outlook was improving.

Overall the company expects the FT Group to make progress this year, with a strong performance from the IDC information company and a pick-up in advertising at Recoletos, the Spanish daily.

Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, chairman, said that trading prospects were better than at any time in three years. “Business advertising revenues appear to be stabilising, we have a solid base of new testing contracts and the 2005 US school market will be very strong,” he said.

The company marked the annual meeting with the announcement of a new global joint venture in children’s publishing between Penguin and BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC.

The new company, which will be 75 per cent owned by Pearson with the BBC holding the rest, will have access to children’s properties such as Teletubbies, Tweenies, Fimbles and Bob the Builder all published by BBC Children’s Books.

The new company will publish 60 to 80 titles a year under the BBC Children’s Books imprint, which will sit beside Penguin’s portfolio.