TV producer, co-producer etc

[kknudson]

I know there are a couple of people up here involved in TV.

Watching shows nowadays I see 4, 5, sometime 6 Executive Producers, Many times several of the primary stars.
Then there are co-executive producers, consulting producer, ?? producers .....

What do all of these people do ?
Is some meant to collect royalities from future showings ?

Just curious

[Jorn]

It's a little complicated these days; this is for motion picture, TV is a little different. Original the "executive producer" was the one that came up with the money, these days it's a title that doesn't mean that much anymore because everybody that helped out but didn't get paid gets that title as a reward. Executive producers are mostly behind the scenes and if they are not the talent hardly seen on set.

The "producer" is the one that puts everything together and is the top dog. His job is to get a good script, find the money and attach a director and talent to the script. A script with out a big name talent attached is almost worthless. He also got creative power and depending on the deals has the last say. That's why there is the "directors cut".

The "co-producer" is a producer like the producer that came on board later, a partner or a producer from another studio or production company.

The "line producer" one of his/her jobs is to keep the finances in check during the shoot. He or she is the right hand man of the producer during the shoot and is on set.

For TV some of the co executives are also the writers or the ones that came up with the idea for the show. In TV the most powerful is called the "show-runner": producer/writer/sometimes director/creative; they make the big bugs.

And because producers/production staff are the ones that control the money they cannot be in a union. There is the producers guild: the PGA. A show runner is a union member because he's a writer as well. So sometimes they got to strike against their own interest...we saw this happen during the last writers strike.