NEW YORK—Hearst Television has promoted John Robertson to senior vice president, strategy & distribution, a new position.
Robertson, who has been the station group’s vice president of distribution since 2021, will continue to report to Nick Radziul, a Hearst Television executive vice president whose oversight includes distribution and government affairs.
Robertson, who 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. The promotion, effective immediately, follows the recent announcement of the planned year-end retirement of Roger Keating as the company’s chief strategy and business development officer.
“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,” said Michael J. Hayes, president of Hearst Television. “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 prior role as vice president, distribution, Robertson supervised negotiations with digital-first video distributors and platforms; he has been actively involved on merger-and-acquisition projects and strategic initiatives. In these various roles he worked in tandem with Radziul, Keating and John Drain, Hearst Television’s chief financial officer.
In collaboration with Hearst Television’s engineering team, Robertson has also 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.
He also 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.
In June 2026, Hearst Television and Viamedia.ai announced the successful testing and launch of the first-ever solution enabling TV station owners and MVPDs to collaborate to deliver addressable advertising via linear broadcast TV streams – an effort Robertson helped spearhead.
While serving as Hearst Television’s senior director of finance from 2018 to 2021, Robertson played a key role on the team handling various aspects of Hearst Television’s distribution agreements and its ATSC 3.0 rollout. He joined the company as manager of finance in 2011. Previously, Robertson, a Certified Public Accountant, was a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers where he consulted various companies including Hearst Television on finance and accounting matters. He holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Scranton and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and has participated in the Hearst Management Institute, Hearst’s executive leadership development program.
