Hearst Television has promoted John Robertson to the role of Senior Vice President, Strategy & Distribution, expanding his responsibilities across distribution, technology and strategic partnerships, the broadcaster announced on Tuesday.
Robertson has served as Vice President of Distribution since 2021. He will continue reporting to Nick Radziul, an Executive Vice President at Hearst Television whose oversight includes distribution and government affairs.
The newly-created position takes effect immediately and follows the recent announcement that Roger Keating, Hearst Television’s Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer, plans to retire at the end of the year.
“John approaches everything he does through the lens of what’s possible: His readiness to see beyond conventional wisdom has been invaluable in our efforts to advance the industry dialogue and build relationships across the distribution and technology landscapes,” Michael J. Hayes, the President of Hearst Television, said in a statement on Tuesday. “His work for many years alongside key senior executives including Nick and Roger, who forged so many relationships for us and blazed so many industry trails, has positioned John to help us innovate further and ensure that high-quality, journalistically sound, local video news remains a vital part of the nation’s fabric.”
In his previous role, Robertson supervised negotiations with digital-first video distributors and platforms and participated in merger-and-acquisition projects and other strategic initiatives. He worked closely with Radziul, Keating and Chief Financial Officer John Drain.
Robertson has also been involved in Hearst’s work around ATSC 3.0 (also known as NextGen TV), serving as the company’s representative on the board of Pearl TV and currently serving on the board of Run3TV. He is also involved with the Go Addressable consortium and serves on the board of the Television Music License Committee.
In June, Hearst Television and Viamedia.ai announced the launch of what they described as the first solution allowing television station owners and multi-channel video programming distributors to collaborate on addressable advertising within linear broadcast television streams. Robertson helped lead that effort.
Before moving into distribution, Robertson served as Hearst Television’s Senior Director of Finance from 2018 to 2021, where he worked on distribution agreements and the company’s ATSC 3.0 rollout. He joined Hearst Television as Manager of Finance in 2011.
Earlier in his career, Robertson worked as a Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where his clients included Hearst Television. He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Scranton and a law degree from Fordham University School of Law.
