KITV President and General Manager Andrew C. Jackson will join Anthology Marketing Group Inc. as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the firm’s advertising practice, a newly created position.
Jackson may be the first top executive in Honolulu television to make such a move.
TV GMs usually retire, take another job on the mainland or get into what is euphemistically called “consulting,” which generally means they are stuck not working while serving out the term of a noncompete clause in their otherwise expired contract.
Jackson’s days at KITV surely were numbered, as the station’s $21 million sale to California-based SJL Broadcast Management by New York-based Hearst Television is expected to close Sept. 1, and broadcast station sales almost invariably bring sweeping management shake-ups.
The sale was announced in May, but Jackson, 50, and Anthology President and CEO Dennis Christianson said they began talking about the new position at the beginning of 2015.
“It’s no hyperbole to say this … is really something I’ve had my eye on for some time … the job I’ve been working toward my entire career,” Jackson told TheBuzz.
The two met through professional contacts, then started working together on some nonprofit boards, Christianson said. They hit it off and realized they shared similar professional histories and professional goals.
“So what began as a kind of a ‘Gosh, wouldn’t it be great to work together someday’ in a conversation over beer started taking form as a possible reality,” Christianson said.
About the same time the station sale announcement was made, “I decided I would go ahead and try to put together a genuine offer for him to join us,” said Christianson.
The newly created position is targeted at improving “the quality of everything we do here,” he said.
“This is great for our future, and we’re adding a top-flight executive in Andrew; and we think this is going to be very important for us, for our future, as we continue to grow,” Christianson said.
It will free up Christianson to “focus on on what I like the most, strategic creative solutions for our clients … while someone else can focus on an equally important internal role,” he said.
Anthology bills itself as Hawaii’s largest integrated marketing firm with some 100 full-time employees and another 40 to 50 part-time staff, in four operational divisions: advertising, public relations, digital and research, Christianson said.
Jackson’s resume includes leadership of the advertising and marketing divisions at BBC Worldwide Americas, and marketing roles at FX Networks and the WB Television Network during 25 years of broadcast industry experience in production, marketing and news in Hawaii, New York and California.
The first decade of his career was spent in Hawaii at KGMB-TV and KITV.
Jackson represents “the highest-profile hire we’ve made since Anthology was formed in 2007, so we do regard this as a very important development,” said Christianson.
“Andrew’s focus is going to be in our advertising group, but his industry knowledge and experience is an additional resource of strategic counsel for each of our groups, which is how we work,” he said.
“I have huge respect for Andrew’s business acumen.”
Jackson’s job at KITV, in which he succeeded the late Mike Rosenberg, who retired five years ago, brought Jackson back to Hawaii, for which he always will be “incredibly grateful,” he said. He lived in Hawaii longer than anywhere else, his wife is from Mililani, “my kids are hapa … my friends are all here,” he said.
Leaving KITV is “bittersweet,” Jackson said, but he added that “KITV has an incredible head of steam right now … and my counsel (to staff) was to deepen what they’re doing so well.”
Asked whether hiring Jackson has anything to do with an impending retirement for Christianson, he laughed. “I have no plans for anything like that whatsoever, but I’m very excited for what this does for the future of the company,” Christianson said.
ON THE NET:
>> anthologygroup.com
>> kitv.com
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
