CLOSE-UP: Newsmaker/David Walsh - Why the FT's ad chief has broadened his horizons. David Walsh will focus on the global stage to bolster the FT.(Financial Times)(Brief Article)

David Walsh admits that he will be clocking up a few Air Miles in his new role as the Financial Times' worldwide ad director. 'But in these cash conscious times,' he adds, 'I'll probably be flying economy.'

It's hard to tell whether Walsh is joking or not but, in the light of Marjorie Scardino's comments last week, it's probable that he isn't. The chief executive of the FT's parent, Pearson, said that the newspaper group's first-half advertising revenues would be 'significantly lower' than this time last year when the group's revenues as a whole had already dropped to pounds 132 million from pounds 211 million in 2000.

The bottom has fallen out of the FT's ad sales performance - and to what extent this leaves a shadow over Walsh's four-year reign as the paper's UK ad director is an …