NEW YORK — The individual who since 2021 has served as Hearst Television’s VP of Distribution has been promoted to Senior VP of Strategy & Distribution, a newly created position in the operation.
He’ll continue to report to Nick Radziul, the Hearst TV Executive VP whose oversight includes distribution and government affairs.
John Robertson‘s new role follows the recent announcement of the planned year-end retirement of Roger Keating as the Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer at Hearst Television.
Robertson “has been instrumental in Hearst Television’s recent breakthrough in addressable linear TV advertising technology, will expand his duties to encompass strategic partnerships in distribution and technology,” Hearst said in an announcement distributed on Tuesday.
Hearst Television President Michael J. Hayes commented, “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. 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 collaboration with Hearst Television’s engineering team, Robertson has overseen implementation of various applications in Hearst’s testing and rollout of the emerging ATSC 3.0, or “next-gen TV,” standard. He has served as Hearst’s representative on the board of Pearl TV, the broadcast TV consortium Keating co-founded to advance the ATSC 3.0 rollout, and currently serves on the board of Run3TV, an advanced TV application platform for next-gen TV.
Robertson serves as a company representative in the Go Addressable consortium advancing targeted TV advertising, and on the board of the Television Music License Committee, a non-profit trade association representing U.S. commercial television stations in negotiations for music-performing rights licenses.
Previous roles within Hearst Television include serving as Senior Director of Finance from 2018 to 2021; he joined the company as manager of finance in 2011. Previously, Robertson, a Certified Public Accountant, was a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
