Disney Restructures Media & Entertainment Distribution

Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution (DMED), ESPN and ABC News are making some changes that continues the process of merging their operations teams into a unified global function, which will sit within the DMED Technology organization (under DMED CTO Aaron LaBerge) and support all of the company’s brands.

This functional unification began last year with all U.S.-based studio and network operations teams, as well as transmission, content preparation and packaging, and international Operations functions. Now, the Remote Operations group from ESPN and the Production Operations team at ABC News, will be joining the DMED Content Operations group, under the leadership of Chris Lawson (SVP, content operations, who reports to LaBerge).

As has been the case in other areas, ESPN and ABC News Production, Content and Creative teams will continue to lead content, news and creative decision making and set requirements. DMED’s global content operations organization will be responsible for working closely with those teams and provide the technology and operational support for studio and remote operations for all TWDC content teams, globally.

These changes also include some changes in DMED Media Engineering team — which work very closely with Content Operations, to develop solutions, identify opportunities and implement innovations in both approaches and infrastructure. Dave Johnson — who has been serving as the interim leader of DMED Media Engineering — is taking on the leadership role permanently.

Under Chris Lawson, DMED Content Operations will be structure to support this as follows:

• Production Operations — led by Chris Calcinari: It is combining production-and-creative-facing operations functions, across studio, remote and REMI operations, as well as news, program and traffic operations – across all brands. Calcinari joins DMED Technology from ESPN, where he led Remote Operations since 2008. Calcinari and the Production Operations team will continue to have day-to-day accountability to all Content creation partners, including the teams at ESPN, ABC News and across Disney’s other brands and businesses.
• Technical Services — led by Michael Cupo: We are bringing together all engineering-facing operations functions, including network origination, transmission operations and media services under Michael Cupo, who takes on a new and expanded role. Cupo has worked for The Walt Disney Co. for a combined 21 years across three stints, most recently leading Transmission and DMED Technology Strategic Operations.
• Creative Services – led by Doug Levy: Doug Levy, will continue in his current remit leading production and post-production Creative Services operations for clients including FX, Freeform and Disney Branded Entertainment within Content Operations.
• Distribution Operations – led by Barrie Godwin: The Distribution Operations team under Barrie Godwin remains unchanged. Godwin and this team continue to be responsible for the consolidated asset delivery to all of Disney’s direct-to-consumer and third-party endpoints. This includes all mastering services, distribution planning, localization operations, versioning, servicing, packaging, and fulfillment.
• Operational Analytics & BRM will be led by Holly Lutkenhouse, who takes on an expanded roll.
• Workflow Transformation will be led by Marcy Lefkovitz, who takes on an expanded role.

The company said the “global DMED Content Operations group will now be positioned to provide deep, flexible, incredibly skilled Operations services for all of the company’s content engines and brands.”

Under Dave Johnson in DMED Media Engineering:

• Joining Dave’s team from ABC News are the Production Systems Technology team, the Technology and Engineering teams (with the exception of Live Desk), Audio Engineering and Washington, D.C.-based technical teams.
• Brian Kennedy will remain at ABC News, but will work closely with Johnson over the next few months during this transition.
• Kevin Plumb continues in his key global leadership role under Johnson .

The company says that making these changes allows it “to leverage the skills and knowledge from across our various segments to benefit one another and the entire company; develop, support and operate truly global platforms and systems and provide opportunities for our people to explore, grow, and contribute more broadly across the entire enterprise.”