Welcome to SHOWRUNNER*.
A weekly newsletter about the shows replacing TV.
Something changed. You don’t need permission anymore. You don’t need a greenlight from a network or a budget from a studio. You can make what you believe in, put it out, and reach more people in a week than a TV show reaches in a season.
Instagram Reels and interview podcasts are now on TV screens. Elections are being decided by appearances on social shows. YouTube gets more watch time than all the Hollywood studios combined. The people behind these shows are passionate about entertainment and meticulous about their craft. But most publications either blithely dismiss them as “influencers” or use them as statistics in consulting reports.
The stuff we’ll dig into is the stuff we’re all whispering about. How do these shows actually make money? What happens when someone copies your format? Why do some shows with huge reach feel like they don’t matter, while others with smaller audiences feel like the center of the culture?
SHOWRUNNER* is a weekly newsletter about the shows replacing TV. We’ll write about what’s going on in the world of videos that live on the feed — the people making them, the business behind them, what’s working and what’s not. The goal is to learn who is replacing Hollywood and how they’re doing it.
Some background on us: We’re building Typo*, a messenger for people who make shows. We operate 474*, a community space for artists in Manhattan. And we’re working on our own shows, including Artist Office Hours* and Where It Happens* (500K+ views across Instagram & YouTube in 9 months). We spend all day talking to creators building shows and studios for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Sahil is the CEO at Typo*. He’s written about TikTok security policy, David Bowie’s internet, and the truth behind Brexit for the WSJ, Foreign Policy, and Mercatus. He was on the founding team at Persuasion, a newsletter with 100K+ subscribers.
Rommel is the Creative Producer at Typo*. He was a producer at an agency that was acquired by UTA before jumping into the fashion world as an assistant to Désiré. He’s developed and edited social campaigns for Meta, Google, Prada, and BOSS.