WPP shares were up 3.5% to 646p this afternoon despite reports that Chris Ingram, chief executive of takeover target Tempus, had threatened to walk out of the company and take his staff with him.
However, the delay in the WPP takeover has allowed Tempus's share price to inch closer to WPP's offer price of 555p a share, after dropping well below the 500p mark after the events of September 11. Tempus remains unchanged on the day's opening price of 527.5p.
The biggest advertising climber of the day was Cordiant Communications, still basking in the glory of emerging the winner in a big advertising review held by Allied Domecq. Cordiant rose 6.4% to 91.5p.
Tempus rival Aegis was up 2.6% to 87.75p while Incepta, which owns PR firm Citigate Dewe Rogerson, fell 1.5% to 33.5p.
The FTSE 100 index climbed 31.9% by lunchtime to 5103.1 points as the outlook for media shares took a positive turn.
BSkyB bucked the media sector with a strong set of results. It climbed 5.3% to 786.5p, helping to boost otherwise troubled ITV companies Carlton and Granada, which jointly run rival digital broadcaster ITV Digital. Carlton climbed 2.6% to 194.5p while Granada was up 0.9% to 134.25p.
Pearson, which last week announced a raft of cost cuts, climbed 3.2% to 848p and radio owner GWR climbed 1.9% to 219p
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