The Executive Behind Some of TV's Most Distinctive Voices
When you look at the landscape of modern broadcast television, certain shows stand out for their willingness to push boundaries or experiment with format. The development of those projects usually traces back to people who were willing to take risks that network executives typically avoid. Lori McCommas spent more than two decades in that exact position, working her way up through the ranks at ABC Studios and eventually running her own imprint there. The role of a television development executive is often misunderstood from the outside. People assume it's about reading scripts and picking the ones that sound good. In practice, it's about understanding audience psychology, network politics, budget constraints, and the delicate balance between creative ambition and commercial viability. I've watched the process from both sides of the table, and it rarely looks like the glamorous version presented in industry documentaries. McCommas started in the industry during a period when network television was still the dominant force in American entertainment. She worked her way from development to producing, handling projects that would later become part of ABC's identity. The show that really defined her career trajectory was Scandal. When that project came through the development pipeline around 2011, the conventional wisdom was that a political thriller centered on a crisis manager played by a Black woman was a nonstarter for prime time. She pushed it forward anyway, and the show became a cultural phenomenon that ran for seven seasons.
That decision illustrates something important about how development executives actually operate. The process isn't purely data-driven. Algorithms can predict whether a genre will perform based on historical patterns, but they can't quantify cultural timing. Shonda Rhimes' pitch was bold precisely because it defied the established formulas. McCommas recognized that the audience was ready for something that hadn't been attempted at that scale on broadcast television before. Her work extended beyond just that one show. Under her leadership at ABC Studios, the development slate included projects like How to Get Away with Murder and For the People, which continued the pattern of centering complex, morally ambiguous protagonists. The company also shifted toward diversifying its storytelling, greenlighting shows that reflected a broader range of experiences than the traditional network playbook had allowed. One specific aspect of this work that outsiders rarely consider is the financial architecture behind television development. A single pilot episode for a network drama typically costs between ten and fifteen million dollars to produce. That doesn't include the marketing spend, the casting costs, or the long tail of distribution deals. When an executive is reviewing a script, they're simultaneously evaluating whether the project justifies that level of investment relative to the expected return. Most pilots never get picked up. Even among the ones that do, only a fraction survive past their first season.
I once sat through a development meeting where a project that looked promising on paper was ultimately rejected because the scheduling requirements for the lead actor made the production timeline impossible to manage within the network's window. The script was strong. The chemistry readings worked. The budget breakdown revealed a logistics problem that no amount of creative enthusiasm could solve. That's the kind of hidden constraint that shapes the final programming slate more than any single creative decision does.
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What Actually Changes in the Industry
The influence of someone in McCommas' position accumulates over years rather than appearing as sudden transformations. When a developer champions a particular type of story repeatedly, they create a track record that shifts what the network considers acceptable risk. By the time Black-ish entered the conversation, the infrastructure for diverse family-oriented comedies on major networks already existed partly because earlier experiments had proven the audience was there. This creates a feedback loop that benefits the industry overall. Each successful project opens the door for the next one. Executives who build that track record gain the credibility to push for riskier ventures. The shows themselves become reference points for what broadcasters believe their audiences will accept. There are limitations to this model that deserve honest acknowledgment. Network television operates under significant structural constraints that no development executive can fully overcome. Sponsorship relationships, affiliate demands, and federal regulations around content all impose boundaries that creative ambition must navigate. Shows that generate the most discussion are sometimes the ones that face the most internal resistance. The tension between reaching new audiences and maintaining existing viewer loyalty is a constant operational challenge.
The shift toward streaming has also complicated the traditional development pathway. Where McCommas operated primarily within the broadcast network system, the current landscape fragments audiences across multiple platforms. The strategies that worked for building a prime-time hit don't translate directly to the streaming environment, where binge consumption patterns and global reach create entirely different metrics for success.
The Practical Impact on Storytelling
What's measurable in the shows themselves is the presence of characters and narratives that previously occupied marginal positions in mainstream television. Political dramas centered on women of color, legal procedurals with diverse ensembles, family comedies that incorporated specific cultural perspectives into their humor rather than treating diversity as an afterthought. These aren't radical departures from standard television forms, but they represent a meaningful expansion of who gets to occupy center stage. The creative infrastructure that supports these shows also matters. When a development executive consistently commissions work from writers and producers who come from underrepresented backgrounds, they're building a pipeline that affects the industry for years. The people who get hired on those shows go on to create their own projects, carrying forward the practices they learned. This is how the business gradually changes, through a series of accumulated hiring and commissioning decisions rather than any single transformative moment. The current phase of media evolution presents new challenges for this approach. Traditional broadcast revenue models are declining. Advertising dollars have migrated to digital platforms. The cost of producing premium television content has risen substantially. These economic pressures mean that the kind of steady, long-term development strategy that McCommas practiced requires renegotiation. Networks and streaming services alike are looking for content that can attract and retain subscribers in an increasingly crowded market, which changes what kinds of projects get funded.
What remains consistent is the fundamental function of development executives: evaluating creative material, assessing market conditions, managing the financial and logistical realities of production, and making judgment calls about which stories deserve to be told. The tools and platforms change. The underlying decision-making process stays recognizably the same. Someone had to greenlight Scandal seven seasons ago, and someone else is making similar calls today about what comes next.
