What a Showrunner is

One of the most common terms in the television world is showrunner. Not everyone knows what that is. While it is likely that most of you already know this, I figured that I will explain this to you readers in case you don’t or want a refresher in what it is in case you don’t know for sure.

Often, the person or people who write the pilot episode of a TV show, the creator of it, gets to be the showrunner of the show if it gets picked up to series. They are largely in charge of the creative process of what will go down on a show and take care of other issues with it that might come up from time to time. With any showrunner, it is their duty alone to make sure the show goes a certain way that they think would be a good one in the end. That doesn’t mean that the end result will be good. But that will at least be the intent of theirs for the show.

Just because a show lasts doesn’t mean that a showrunner is set to keep their job controlling a show the whole time the show lasts. Designated Survivor was notorious at one point for having four different showrunners throughout its two seasons on ABC. Sometimes they are only gone for a moment and then return later in the show’s run. This isn’t always the case. I can often notice that a show has a new person in charge of it without even knowing for sure as it just seems that something is off about it. Again, this is not always the case as sometimes the show improves after a showrunner has changed.

Now a showrunner might be gone in that capacity, but still there in other ways on the show. That is what is true about The Simpsons as its creator is still there doing something. I think that he is a producer on the show still. He’s not the only one who is like that. It is understandable why most would not stay that way in some capacity if they don’t have the creative control they were used to. I don’t know just how common this phenomenon is.

Why would showrunners change on a show? It is hard to know for sure in some cases. When Brad Kern was fired as showrunner of NCIS: New Orleans, it was because of allegations of sexual harassment that had been made against him. I don’t know why the original showrunner of Bull isn’t there anymore. I do not think that they liked his work. But I don’t know for sure. Some things might not be made public.

That’s pretty much all I can think of for this post. Maybe there could be more to add, but I don’t think that any more is worthwhile. I hope that you understand more of what a showrunner is now. Of course, you probably don’t know much more about it than I do.