Last week's relegation of his beloved football team, Charlton Athletic, to the third tier of English football marked the beginning of a tough few days for ITV executive chairman Michael Grade.
Perhaps this was the final straw that prompted him to bow to shareholder pressure and announce he will leave his ITV post early, but stay on as a non-exec.
The week culminated in frenzied speculation about his successor at the UK's most iconic commercial broadcaster, encompassing internal options John Cresswell, Rupert Howell and Peter Fincham and numerous external candidates such as Five's Dawn Airey, former Channel 4 chief executive Michael Jackson and - seemingly - Uncle Tom Cobley and all.
Grade joined ITV in January 2007 and immediately injected a new feel-good factor into the company. But it quickly became apparent the job wasn't quite what he signed up for. Pension deficits, loan commitments and an ad revenue-trashing recession equalled a £1bn-plus headache that made it impossible for him to implement his strategy.
Grade said goodbye to commercial chief Ian McCulloch and programme head Simon Shaps, bringing in a "dream team" of Howell, Fincham, Carolyn Fairbairn and Dawn Airey. The first cracks appeared when Airey abruptly jumped ship to Five. Then Grade's content-led recovery plan and online and global revenue targets were replaced with cuts as the recession kicked in.
Grade made progress on the regulatory front, with an impending relaxation of ITV's public service broadcasting requirements and easing of contract rights renewal the result of strong and effective lobbying, although the suspicion remains the Government almost felt sorry for the broadcaster's plight and realised ITV was in danger of disappearing completely if something wasn't done.
When I interviewed him for Media Week TV in September 2007 (www.mediaweek.tv), Grade presented ITV.com as a "world-class" website and Friends Reunited as having more longevity than Facebook, plus an ability to charge. Both statements look fatuous in retrospect.
But it's not down to Grade that ITV is in the state it is - the fault lines stretch back long before his tenure. He gave it a shot but was unable to sprinkle his stardust over the broadcaster. Whoever tries next needs a clear vision about what needs to be done and the freedom to implement it - unencumbered by Grade's lingering presence.
