Discovery announced this month that it is transferring the Scripps Broadcast hub from Knoxville to a facility in Virginia.
Chief Technology Officer John Honeycutt sent an email to employees about the move on Friday. Honeycutt said the NoVa Tech hub in Sterling, Virginia will take over responsibility for broadcasting the Scripps and Latin America content.
He said it allows the company to take advantage of the infrastructure in Sterling and maximize the use of the cloud to distribute content globally.
The transfer is expected to be complete by the end of January 2019. The employees affected by the change have already been notified, according to the email sent to staff.
Discovery bought Scripps last July for $14.6 billion.
Scripps is home to many popular brands, including the Food Network and HGTV.
Read the full letter employees received on Friday from Chief Technology Officer John Honeycutt here:
"As I previously shared back in April, we took on the difficult task of analyzing the consolidation of feeds for our global “pre-recorded” networks and set out to determine where linear playout for the legacy Scripps domestic and Latin America feeds should live. This was a large undertaking that required the efforts of the entire team and we have determined through this analysis that responsibility for the linear playout functions will move to our NoVa Tech Hub in Sterling, Virginia. We believe this is the right decision for the business as it allows us to take advantage of the infrastructure in place in Sterling and fully maximize the flexibility of the cloud for the distribution of our content globally. We expect this transfer to be complete by the end of January 2019. All employees affected by this decision have been notified. I want to take this opportunity to share my appreciation for the many colleagues who are impacted by this decision.
With that said, I am pleased to share the below areas of responsibility for each member of the new Global Technology & Operations leadership team for Discovery. I believe this team of talented leaders is the best in the industry and they are well placed to serve the needs of Discovery as the business moves through the transition and transformation ahead. They will each be charged with continuing the organizational transformation work already underway, seeking ways to more effectively integrate the legacy teams and continuously refining our processes to best serve the needs of the business moving forward. As you will see, each of these senior leaders will oversee teams located in more than one location around our global organization.
The GT&O Senior Leadership Team:
Trish Collins Weedon, SVP & Global CISO has been instrumental in leading Discovery’s Information Security efforts and will continue to do so in her role as the global Chief Information Security Officer for Discovery based in the Northern Virginia Tech Hub. Trish’s InfoSec teams will be located in Knoxville, Sterling, London and Paris.
Bob Baskerville, EVP Enterprise Digital & Media Ops is a seasoned leader and has quickly become a key part of the transformation and will now take responsibility for leading the design of the Enterprise Digital model, Media Operations, and will continue to serve as our lead for the Knoxville location. Bob’s Digital and Media teams will be co-located in Knoxville, NYC and MD Hub.
Simon Farnsworth, EVP Technology & Ops, EMEA/APAC has effectively led the European technology and operations functions, including an incredibly successful execution of the 2018 Olympic Games coverage. He will continue leading these efforts with the added responsibility for Asia and London combined portfolios.
Dave Duvall, EVP Infrastructure & IT Support Services will continue to oversee the creation, building and management of the backbone of our technology infrastructure as well as continue to oversee global support services. Dave will work out of the Northern Virginia Technology Hub. Dave’s infrastructure and support services teams will be located in Knoxville, Sterling and London.
Brinton Miller, EVP Technology Strategy & Ops will have continued responsibility for the design and execution of our global media technology strategy and will continue to oversee content systems for the new Discovery. Brinton will be based at the Northern Virginia Tech Hub. Brinton’s teams will be located in Knoxville, Sterling, MD Hub and London.
Ross Goodall, SVP Business Systems & Ops will continue to lead the organization responsible for developing and overseeing systems critical to Discovery’s business operations based in the UK. Ross’s team will continue to be global, but primarily located in London, Knoxville and Sterling.
Tania Turano, SVP Strategy & Planning will have continued responsibility for the strategy, planning and program management in support of our ever-increasingly complex array of technology-enabled initiatives based in the Tech Hub. Tania’s team will be located between Knoxville, Sterling and London.
Chris McGrath will continue to lead and drive Discovery’s global data management, visualization and analysis efforts based in New York. In addition, he will take on a new role leading a central research function for Discovery’s domestic efforts and will move over to report directly to David Leavy.
We will continue to work on the go-forward strategy for post-production. For now, there will be no change to the current organization. Reporting lines will remain intact and your SMT leader will keep you apprised of updates as we work with the business to understand long term needs in this area.
As we continue the work needed to drive synergy and innovation over the next few weeks, you will be hearing more from your SMT leader about our organization design efforts and as decisions are made, we will communicate those to each of you. Thank you for your continued hard work and dedication as we work through this transition.
John"