Carlton Media Sales chief stands down

Carlton Media Sales chief executive Martin Bowley has confirmed that he is bowing out of the merged ITV after his counterpart at Granada Enterprises, Graham Duff, was appointed managing director of ITV plc.

Bowley, who has been with Carlton since 1992 and planned a management buy-out of its sales operation in 2002, will leave the company at the end of the year.

Duff had been the front-runner to win the battle for control of 51 per cent of the UK’s TV advertising business (MW October 9). As the designate managing director of the merged ITV sales house, his first task will be to earmark redundancies.

Bowley’s departure is the second high-profile exit from Carlton. Last month chairman Michael Green was ousted.

Industry sources claim that Bowley, who has been a salesman for most of his life, has ambitions to run an advertising agency. In 1975, Bowley started as a salesman for Cadbury and progressed to television when he joined Westward TV in 1982 as a sales executive. There, he rose through the ranks to become sales director in 1998.

“He has been removed from the day-to-day operations at Carlton for some time now and has been more of a statesman-like figure. I don’t think that he is under immense pressure to take up a new job after a lavish bonus, but I also cannot see him taking another job as a natural transition,” says a source close to Bowley.