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Channel 5 has parted company with its incumbent media suppliers,

Carat and Michaelides & Bednash, and handed its entire pounds 10 million

media account to Walker Media without a pitch.

Michaelides & Bednash handled Channel 5’s strategic media account while

Carat was the incumbent on its media buying.

Jim Hytner, Channel 5’s new marketing director, appointed Walker Media

on Wednesday. ’Carat and M&B have done a fantastic job but I think it’s

important to consolidate planning and buying at this stage of our

development,’ he said.

Hytner added that Walker Media’s founding partner, Phil Georgiadis,

would ’bring a lot of what M&B brought to the party’ in terms of a

strong creative input.

Both Georgiadis and his partner, Christine Walker, have worked with

Hytner before - Georgiadis at WCRS when Hytner was marketing controller

on the Sega account and Walker at Zenith when Hytner was the marketing

director on the agency’s Sky Television business.

Hytner explained that he decided not to hold a pitch for the Channel 5

business because ’it’s old-fashioned to have a beauty parade when you

know who the best people around are’.

Mark Craze, the managing director of Carat, said: ’We are bemused and

appalled at the way we have been treated. Our team did a wonderful job

and bust a gut, helping to successfully launch Channel 5. The thanks we

now get for our efforts is to be sacked.’

Georgiadis said the appointment was a resounding endorsement of Walker

Media’s positioning as a full-service media company.

’It’s very much at the heart of our proposition because it stretches

from strategic development to implementation. It’s fantastic that a

media owner of such prestige has put its faith in our offering. We’re

looking forward to working with Jim and the Channel 5 team.’

Channel 5’s creative account, handled by Mother, is not under review and

the agency will be working on an autumn campaign.