Don't quite see how you leapt to "propping up the share price"...

... but the figures seem about right. If what I read is right and BSOG is about 5% of T & W's turnover, and removing all of it before it was cut would have reduced services or hiked fares by 7%, then it seems that the bus companies, on average, across the country are only making a return of 5 to 7 per cent (but I suspect averages hide big differences!). The cut in BSOG last year did force bus fares up and cut some services. But there isn't a straight-line relationship between BSOG and profits or share prices... this looks to me like a little bit of "journalistic licence".