After five years in the top engineering job at WABC, the ABC Television Network has named Kurt Hanson, VP of engineering services and systems support at its Broadcasting Operations and Engineering (BO&E) group.
He will report to Todd Donovan, senior VP of BO&E, and take the post held by Ken Michel, who is retiring after 34 years with the company.
“We’re privileged to have such great talent inside the Disney/ABC Television Group and very pleased to have an executive of Kurt’s caliber join our team from within the company,” said Donovan in a statement. “He has the vision and experience to help our division towards our goal of building the best television engineering and support organization in the industry for our business partners.”
Prior to this announcement, Hanson had spent five years at WABC-TV as VP of engineering and technology, where he spearheaded the final transition to HD for the station’s Eyewitness News and led the construction of WABC’s street side studio and Live with Kelly & Michael’s expanded multi-tier set.
Before that he was chief engineer at WABC for 12 years, where he built its first automated production control room, and transitioned the station from analog to digital.
He first joined WABC in 1996 in its engineering and maintenance group.
Earlier he worked for several stations in Massachusetts and Connecticut and holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Harford.
