Jordan Schwartz has been appointed to the newly created role of vice-president, lifestyle and entertainment production at Rogers Media Television.
His name will be familiar to media watchers: Schwartz was most recently senior vice-president/general manager of CTV’s Entertainment Group. One of his most noted accomplishments there was building a successful entertainment brand out of eTalk. “We developed an entertainment brand that came out of nothing; it was a daytime show that didn’t have a lot of money and we turned it into the eTalk brand,” said Schwartz.
In his new role, Schwartz reports to Jamie Haggarty, executive vice-president, television operations. “What I love here is there is such a winning attitude. The leadership of Keith [Pelley, president of Rogers Media], Scott [Moore, president of Rogers Broadcasting] and Jamie—they all want to win and everyone brings a new perspective and there’s a great energy. It feels like there’s nothing we can’t do.”
Schwartz is working to build Citytv’s Breakfast Television in five markets: Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. He’ll also be focused on CityLine, the national daytime show, as well as enhancing the production teams at local stations to bolster in-house lifestyle and entertainment brands. His role will also see him advise on OMNI Television’s entertainment productions.
“Because this company is growing so fast, I’m going to be looking at all our in-house production and making sure we are as strong as we can be,” he said.
The good news for advertisers is he’s “definitely open for business” when it comes to expanding working partnerships. “I’ve always worked very well with marketing and sales on the shows,” he said. “There are great ways to integrate product into shows and get messaging out there.”
He uses CityLine as an example. “The show really is about product. People always want to know ‘Where do I get that? How do I get that?’ There are endless opportunities on all our shows to do that.”
With more than 16 years of lifestyle and entertainment production experience, Schwartz previously worked as an ABC daytime producer in Los Angeles and an NBC News producer in New York.
Rogers Media is a division of Rogers Communications. Rogers Media operates Rogers Broadcasting and Rogers Publishing, which owns Marketing.
