Claim: Two people have overall creative control and management responsibility for American Gods (TV series).

In the parlance of the Hollywood television industry , a showrunner is a television series ' leading executive producer .   A showrunner 's duties often combine those traditionally assigned to the head writer , executive producer , and script editor . In films , directors typically have creative control of a production -- but in television , the showrunner outranks the director . The showrunner is at the opposite end of the staff hierarchy from runners , who are the most junior members of a production team , though showrunners are sometimes -LRB- often humorously -RRB- called runners for short .