So You Want to Be A Showrunner?

A big “career goal” for a lot of screenwriters is to be the Showrunner on their own TV series. But even though many writers aspire to this coveted position, few people actually know what the job involves. Why? It’s one of the most unique (and frankly mysterious) Hollywood jobs there are.

If you want to be a Showrunner, hopefully one day (if you’re eligible) you’ll apply to be part of my WGA Showrunner Training program. I call it my Program because I’ve been the Director for seventeen years, but the Program was created by Writer-Producer Jeff Melvoin). The purpose of the SRTP is to teach essential tools and strategies to help you become an effective Showrunner in today’s television landscape.

But in the meantime, as you climb the Hollywood ladder, let’s talk about the broad strokes of what a Showrunner actually DOES.

What Is a Showrunner?

Being a Showrunner is both a creative and managerial position where the Showrunner quite literally “runs the show.” It is their job to oversee all aspects of a series and make all final decisions on things like: scripts and hiring staff and overseeing schedule, casting, budget and more. As the old saying goes, the “the buck stops” with them.

Some Showrunners are the original series creator, while others are experienced, upper level TV series writer/producers, who get attached to a show by a studio or network.

The creative side

A Showrunner has to have a clear vision for the show and be able to communicate that vision to others. That vision is like the “guiding light” that everyone else working on the series follows: from the staff writers, story editors, and script coordinators, to the episodic directors, costumers and makeup artists. A Showrunner is also responsible for communicating the show's creative direction to the network and studio executives who are paying for the production.

During production the Showrunner is the point of ultimate creative control. Which means if an episode director, actor, producer, you name it, has creative questions - they have to have the answers.

The managerial side

Apart from being a creative visionary, Showrunners are also the boss. The leader. Like any manager, they are responsible for things like budgeting, hiring and firing. They also have to know how to take the deadlines and budget demands of the network and studio and build a team and schedule that can make it happen.

Are Showrunners still part of the writers room?

The showrunner’s ultimate responsibility is what Jeff Melvoin calls the SRTP mantra:  “Quality Scripts on Time”. Which means a showrunner has to be the driving force in the writers room. A good showrunner is always there as the overall season, character and story arcs are broken. But once those are firmly in place a showrunner often has to step away and usually leaves their “Number 2” in charge to run the room in their absence. Plus, once production begins, they have so many balls in the air and are pulled in eleven hundred different directions, they often have to be away from the writers room for periods at a time. But even if they’re not always present in the room, the showrunner has the ultimate say and a number of showrunners take the last polish pass on scripts themselves. 

So how do I become a Showrunner?

Many writers fantasize about selling their pilot script and immediately being crowned Showrunner on their own series. Even though this anomaly can happen, it’s extremely rare. More often than not becoming a Showrunner takes years of climbing the “writers room ranks” and proving your professionalism, creativity, and trustworthiness. But I’ll go into that in more detail in a future post.

For now, take heart that if you’re focused on being the best writer you can be, you are on the right path. That's where every great Showrunner begins.

What Showrunners inspire you? Let me know @CaroleKirsch!