Alumni Advisory Board Member Emerson Coleman Promoted at Hearst Television

Hearst Television announced yesterday that Emerson Coleman (M.A.C. ’78), who has served as Hearst Television’s vice president of programming since 1999, has been promoted to senior vice president, programming.

Coleman is a member of the Annenberg School Alumni Advisory Board.

“Emerson has been instrumental in the growth and stewardship of Hearst Television’s best-in-class programming assets,” said Hearst Television President Jordan Wertlieb in a press release.

Early last year, Hearst acquired majority ownership of Litton Entertainment and its lineup of Saturday morning programming, which appears on ABC, CBS, The CW, and NBC. Coleman is responsible for overseeing this programming.

He also oversees the Hearst show “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien,” which now averages an audience of 1 million weekly viewers. Coleman also collaborated with the Hearst Television news team to produce a group-wide September 2017 primetime special, “Matter of Fact:  State of Addiction,” addressing the nation’s opioid crisis.

Before moving to Hearst’s New York headquarters in 1999, Coleman was vice president and director of broadcast operations at WBAL-TV, the Hearst NBC affiliate in Baltimore, where he produced the award-winning “Remarkable Journey” series.  He began his career as a writer and filmmaker, later working at WBZ-TV Boston, and at WJZ-TV Baltimore, where he was executive producer of local programming.

In addition to serving on Annenberg’s Alumni Advisory Board, Coleman serves on the advisory boards of the Peabody Awards and the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) Educational Foundation.