Quality TV and Its Production Cultures: Negotiations on Writing and Producing

This chapter is fundamentally concerned with production cultures as a central object of the industry discourse on quality drama, and it focuses in particular on screenwriting. The practitioners considered this early phase to be a cornerstone of quality and discussed deficits in this regard. First, chapter 8 discusses the economic framework conditions of screenwriting. Subsequently, it elaborates on how producers negotiated the writers’ roomWriters’ room and describes writers’ roomWriters’ room practices in the German industry, including obstacles posed by its production cultures. The third part of the chapter focuses on practical and discursive approaches to the “showrunnerShowrunner”, the leader in the series production process who is responsible for both business and creativity and usually coordinates the writers’ roomWriters’ room. The showrunner is a particular example of changes in series production in Germany and in discussions about hierarchies in script development. The fourth part looks more closely at the industry discourse regarding the agency of screenwriters. In addition to illuminating their traditional marginalisation, this final part investigates the often complicated relationship between directorDirector and writer.