After a search that has lasted for nearly a year, Adam Crozier has been appointed the new chief executive for ITV (LSE: ITV), the largest commercial broadcaster in the UK.

The appointment at first sounds truly random: this will be Crozier’s first ever job in broadcasting. And what’s more, he is currently the head of the Royal Mail, hardly the adjacent industry people would have expected to feed into the executive levels of the media industry. But there may well be a method to this madness…

Crozier cut his teeth at advertising giant Saatch & Saatchi, eventually rising to run the company. Advertising, of course, is at the core of ITV’s business. He will have a tall task ahead of him here: TV advertising at the broadcaster has been in decline over the last several years. It is expected to be flat for the three months ended in December.

But there is an untapped opportunity at ITV.com. In its earnings update in November, ITV noted that its online advertising grew by 45 percent compared to the year before, which equated to £16 million. Much of the boost was down to one phenomenon, the appearance of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent, which drove millions to watch the streams of her performances online and resulted in a 100 percent growth in sales at ITV.com, to £10 million. Will Crozier be able to steer the broadcaster into a position to either repeat this phenomenon and to hopefully find a way to sustain this activity?

Crozier will have to figure out where ITV may ultimately play in the context of online TV partnerships: There were reports last year that ITV might link up Hulu, the U.S.-broadcaster-led online video partnership, which could potentially give the broadcaster a huge international audience for its content. And there is also Project Canvas, in which ITV is a partner along with broadcasters the BBC, Channel 4 and ISPs BT (NYSE: BT) and Talk Talk. Other digital items on Crozier’s agenda: ITV’s proposed £25 million sale of Friends Reunited and Genes Reunied to DC Thomson is still being referred to the Competition Commission.

Between Saatchi and Saatchi and the Royal Mail, Crozier spent time as the head of the Football Association, which may turn out to be another area of expertise that will help the broadcaster in its bids for online and TV rights for football and other sports. ITV and the BBC jointly hold the rights to broadcast the FIFA World Cup in both 2010 and 2014.