Disney Restructures ESPN Remote Ops, ABC News Production Ops Under DMED Technology Division Dave Johnson and Chris Lawson take on key leadership roles in Engineering and Operations at Disney, while Chris Calcinari and Chris Cupo also get expanded roles By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Monday, March 7, 2022 - 4:00 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution (DMED), ESPN, and ABC News have announced a restructuring of its 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 US-based studio and network operations teams, as well as transmission, content preparation and packaging, and international (ex-US) Operations functions. Today, 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 (Sr. VP, 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 and creative decision making and set requirements. DMED's global content operations organization will be responsible for working closely with content 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 who 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, as DMED continues modernizing and innovating its engineering systems, infrastructure and approaches.
Under Chris Lawson, DMED Content Operations will be structure to support this as follows:
Production Operations - led by Chris Calcinari: DMED is combining production-and-creative-facing operations functions, across studio, remote and REMI operations, as well as news, program and traffic operations. 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 of Disney's content creation partners, including the teams at ESPN (under Tina Thornton), ABC News (under Derek Medina) and across Disney's other brands and businesses.
Technical Services - led by Michael Cupo: DMED is 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 Company 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
Under Dave Johnson in DMED Media Engineering:
Joining Johnson'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 Dave.
According to the company' announcement, making these changes allows Disney to leverage the skills and knowledge from across its various segments to benefit one another and the entire company; develop, support and operate truly global platforms and systems and provide opportunities for its people to explore, grow, and contribute more broadly across the entire enterprise.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
Disney Restructures ESPN Remote Ops, ABC News Production Ops Under DMED Technology Division Dave Johnson and Chris Lawson take on key leadership roles in Engineering and Operations at Disney, while Chris Calcinari and Chris Cupo also get expanded roles By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
