Top departures hit GMTV sales

Breakfast TV station GMTV is losing two of its most senior sales executives.

Group sales managers Jim McDonald and Alex McDevitt are leaving to join start-up media agency The Allmond Partnership and Scandinavian broadcaster TV3, respectively.

McDonald joins The Allmond Partnership as a managing partner following last month’s 110m BT TV buying account win. The agency was founded by Nigel Allmond – the former director responsible for BT at The Negotiation Centre, the TV division of CIA Medianetwork – and Manning Gottlieb Media.

McDonald and Allmond worked together on the BT account in the mid-Nineties when it was handled by IDK. The CIA Group (now known as Tempus) later bought out IDK. McDonald went on to work at Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO and New PHD as a TV buying controller.

McDevitt has been poached from GMTV by former Thames Television marketing director and commercial director of TV3 Jonathan Shier to become sales controller for the pay-TV broadcaster. TV3 transmits to Sweden, Denmark and Norway and has just bought a stake in three stations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

McDevitt, who will initially be based at the Danish sales operation in Copenhagen, leaves GMTV after six years. She was recruited at the station’s launch from Ulster TV, where she was London sales manager. Before that, McDevitt worked at Central Television.

She says: “I wanted to work in the European market, which is much broader and more interesting to be in.”