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Even so, ITV has a worryingly long way to go before it turns viewers it has into a meaningful advertising revenue. At 30.25p, or 12 times next year's earnings, the shares are still not cheap. Avoid.

Next: Changing room

Steve Hawkes

The world has changed since Simon Wolfson vowed to bring back the magic at Next at the beginning of last year, yet today’s trading update shows there are signs of life at the fashion chain.

A 4.4 per cent fall in like-for-like sales is hardly ideal but it’s better than analysts expected and, yet again, puts Marks & Spencer into the shade.

A renewed focus on younger fashion, quicker product turnaround and a greater investment in store refurbishments appears to be helping Next to weather the worst of the recession.

Nick Bubb, the retail analyst at Pali International, has taken down his profits forecasts ahead of today’s update. He has now put them back up again, expecting Next to generate £420 million in 2008-2009 and £380 million in 2010.

The shares have rallied 30 per cent recently and there is a case for further gains, given the relatively low valuation of eight times earnings.

However as Next admitted today the outlook is far from rosey. Mr Wolfson has long argued that the chain’s 25-44 year-old customer base is the most vulnerable to the fallout from credit crunch, given the higher mortgage and energy costs they face.

Moreover, the resurgent dollar looms large. Retailers expect that after years of deflation, the strong greenback will put huge pressure on costs in the second half of next year at a time when there will be precious little room for manoeuvre on the balance sheet. Next will be among the surest bets when the dust settles, but that could be a long time away. Hold.

Tetley: Brewing for a while

Dominic Walsh

The closure of the Tetley's brewery in Leeds is no surprise. Since April last year, when the site formed part of a development review of the city centre by Leeds City Council, it has been a question of when rather than if. The wheels obviously move slowly in Copenhagen as it will be another three years before the brewery finally shuts its doors. By then, the property value of the site may well have improved, though ironically trading may also have improved.

Indeed, the closure of what Camra claims is the biggest real ale brewery in Britain comes at a time when sales of "proper beer" are bucking the wider decline.

Today's results from Carlsberg show just how tough western European beer markets have become, although the UK was the only market to suffer a decline in third-quarter net revenues.

But the recent downturn in trading on the back of the smoking ban, consumer spending weakness, poor weather and soaring costs is not the whole story. Sales of alcohol have been on the wane for years due to factors such as the drink-drive laws, the loss of the Britain's heavy industries and changing social mores.

The UK beer market has for a long time had a production overcapacity and it is the older, less efficient city centre sites with high alternative use value that have been most at risk. In the last couple of years, Young's has closed its historic Ram Brewery in Wandsworth, South London, while Scottish & Newcastle has offloaded its sites in Edinburgh, Newcastle and Reading. Tetley's brewery will not be the last casualty.

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