Showrunners

In the parlance of the Hollywood television industry, a showrunner is a television series' executive producer who is also the head writer.

A showrunner's duties often combine those traditionally assigned to the head writer, executive producer, and script editor. In films, directors typically have creative control of a production — but in television, the showrunner always outranks the director. The showrunner is at the opposite end of the staff hierarchy from runners, who are the most junior members of a production team, though showrunners are sometimes (often humorously) called runners for short.

Traditionally, the executive producer of a television program was the chief executive, responsible for the show's creative direction and production. Over time, the title of executive producer was applied to a wider range of roles — from someone who arranges financing to someone who holds the title as an honorific with no management duties. The term showrunner was created to identify the producer who held ultimate management and creative authority for the program. The blog and book Crafty Screenwriting defines a showrunner as "the person responsible for all creative aspects of the show and responsible only to the network (and production company, if it's not [their] production company). The boss. Usually a writer."

Los Angeles Times columnist Scott Collins describes showrunners as:

"Hyphenates", a curious hybrid of starry-eyed artists and tough-as-nails operational managers. They're not just writers; they're not just producers. They hire and fire writers and crew members, develop story lines, write scripts, cast actors, mind budgets and run interference with studio and network bosses. It's one of the most unusual and demanding, right-brain/left-brain job descriptions in the entertainment world....[S]howrunners make – and often create – the show and now more than ever, shows are the only things that matter. In the "long tail" entertainment economy, viewers don't watch networks. They don't even care about networks. They watch shows. And they don't care how they get them.

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