Entertainment Rights, the troubled owner of children’s characters such as Postman Pat, the Lone Ranger and Basil Brush, has been fined £245,000 by the Financial Services Authority for breaching rules on transparency.
It has emerged that the media company, which has issued a series of profit warnings as well as letting a third of its staff go in recent months, waited 78 days before disclosing details of problems relating to a DVD deal in the US with Genius, a distribution company.

Entertainment Rights delayed telling investors about a $13.9m (£10.3m) reduction in its estimated profits that would result from a change to the distribution deal.

Sally Dewar, managing director of wholesale and institutional markets at the FSA, said: “Listed companies must carefully assess what could be inside information and whether they need to disclose it.”

The FSA said it took into account that Entertainment Rights, whose shares fell 25pc yesterday, had taken steps to strengthen its board and had admitted the breaches to the FSA.

“The lack of timely disclosure led to a false market in Entertainment Rights for about 78 days,” the regulator said. It added that the fine would have been £350,000 but the company had qualified for a discount after admitting its mistake.

In a statement the company said that it would not appeal. Entertainment Rights said yesterday that it had ended terminated its contract with Genius.