Channel 5 gives Carat the chop

When Ray Kelly, chairman and chief executive of Carat Group got up last Wednesday, he must have been happily anticipating a day to remember – and unfortunately it was.

Kelly, a life-long Chelsea fan, played in a knockout football tournament at Stamford Bridge, organised by his trusted client Channel 5.

Inspired by their surroundings Kelly’s team, the imaginatively named “Chelsea”, did well to lift a trophy for finishing third out of the eight competing teams.

However, the day took a vertical nose-dive when Kelly came off the pitch, only to learn that Channel 5 marketing director Jim Hynter had handed its 10m media account to Christine Walker’s Walker Media without a pitch.

While Kelly was doing the business on the pitch, Hynter and Walker were carving up another sort of business in the boardroom.