Hearst Television Elevates Michael Rosellini To SVP, Digital Services

Michael Rosellini, since 2013 Hearst Television’s vice president, digital operations, has been promoted to senior vice president, digital services.

The promotion, effective immediately, was made Monday by Jordan Wertlieb, president of Hearst Television, and Roger Keating, Hearst Television’s senior vice president, chief strategy and business development officer.

In this role, Rosellini supervises a team developing products and overseeing engineering, data, and operational responsibilities for the company’s station-branded local news sites and mobile apps, as well as its Very Local streaming apps and related FAST channels.

“Mike is an exceptional leader whose work cuts across all emerging platforms and keeps Hearst Television among the top tier of media groups for innovation,” Wertlieb said. “Among his many contributions, he has represented us well in various industry forums and is, most notably, an exceptional developer of talent.”

Rosellini has overseen multiple end-to-end redesigns to keep Hearst Television’s digital products current on new platforms, numerous CMS migrations, and continuously evolving digital video, data, and ad tech stacks. His team recently designed, built, and launched a complete suite of OTT/CTV apps to power Hearst Television’s push into streaming under the Very Local brand.

He has also been instrumental in representing the company’s digital-media interests within industry organizations, including the National Association of Broadcasters and the Pearl TV consortium of U.S. TV broadcast companies pursuing various industry innovations such as NextGen TV.

“Mike has a deep understanding of both internal and external customers and a relentless focus on driving quality experiences through his eye for product design and agile software development,” Keating added. “He is a self-taught digital technologist whose natural curiosity, coupled with a passion for video streaming tech, led him to master the various and complex functions he leads.”

Hearst Television recruited Rosellini in 2008 as director of digital product development; in this initial role, he began the build-out of Hearst Television’s first in-house software engineering team, which executed an extensive CMS migration and redesign of the Hearst Television websites and mobile applications. Previously, Rosellini managed projects for CBSNews.com, working on website and CMS feature development and early video streaming efforts.

Rosellini’s deep background in local media began with internships in the newsrooms of WNYT-TV and WGY-AM in his hometown market of Albany, NY; he later worked part-time at WMAL-AM and WRC-TV Washington while studying broadcast journalism at American University. After graduating, Rosellini produced and edited content for WNBC-TV New York’s website before he moved fully into digital media tech at CBS Interactive.

Rosellini is a certified change agent for Hearst Television’s parent company — Hearst’s conscious-inclusion training program called Include — and attended the Hearst Management Institute.