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Replacing the showrunner
Stephen Colbert might have to find a successor to the man who helped him right his ship
In both TV and movies, the term “producer” has lost a lot of its meaning. “Producer” credits are handed out like party favors. People who have little day-to-day responsiblity for a movie or TV show are given “executive producer” credits because they have some ownership of the show, or maybe they are connected to the original intellectual property on which the movie is based, or what have you. A talented writer or story editor might be given a producer credit on a TV show as a way of trying to keep him or her from jumping ship.
If you pay close attention to the credits of a TV or movie, you may see a dozen people with “producer,” “executive producer” or “associate producer” credits.
In the world of TV, the term “showrunner” was coined to denote the person who has the actual, day-to-day responsibilities for a TV show. You won’t see it in the credits, but it’s used in trade publications, websites, and news stories. A big-name producer like Dick Wolf or Shonda Rhimes or Chuck Lorre may have a number of different TV shows on at the same time, far too many for them to actually make the day-to-day decisions for each one. So each of the different Dick Wolf shows — the various “Law & Order” shows, the various…
