Claim: Glee was a musical.

Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that aired on the Fox network in the United States from May 19 , 2009 , to March 20 , 2015 . It focuses on the fictitious William McKinley High School glee club , New Directions , which competes on the show choir competition circuit while its disparate members deal with social issues , especially regarding sexuality and race , relationships , and learning to become an effective team . The initial twelve-member cast included club director and Spanish teacher Will Schuester -LRB- Matthew Morrison -RRB- , cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester -LRB- Jane Lynch -RRB- , guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury -LRB- Jayma Mays -RRB- , Will 's wife Terri -LRB- Jessalyn Gilsig -RRB- , and eight club members played by Dianna Agron , Chris Colfer , Kevin McHale , Lea Michele , Cory Monteith , Amber Riley , Mark Salling , and Jenna Ushkowitz . In subsequent seasons , the main cast has expanded to fourteen and fifteen members .   The series was created by Ryan Murphy , Brad Falchuk , and Ian Brennan , the latter of whom first conceived of Glee as a film . The three wrote all of the show 's episodes for the first two seasons , and Murphy and Falchuk initially served as the show 's main directors . The pilot episode was broadcast on May 19 , 2009 , and the first season aired from September 9 , 2009 , to June 8 , 2010 . Subsequent seasons aired in September through May . The sixth and final season aired from January to March 2015 . Glee features on-screen performance-based musical numbers that were selected by Murphy , who aimed to maintain a balance between show tunes and chart hits , and produced by Adam Anders and Peer Åström . Songs covered in the show were released through the iTunes Store during the week of broadcast , and a series of Glee albums have been released by Columbia Records . The music of Glee has been a commercial success , with over thirty-six million digital single sales and eleven million album sales worldwide through October 2011 . The series ' merchandise also includes DVD and Blu-ray releases , an iPad application , and karaoke games for the Wii . There were live concert tours by the show 's cast after the first and second seasons completed shooting ; a concert film based on the 2011 tour , Glee : The 3D Concert Movie , was produced by Murphy and Fox and directed by Kevin Tancharoen .   During its first season , Glee received generally favorable reviews from critics , with Metacritic 's weighted average of 77 out of 100 based on eighteen critical reviews . The season was nominated for nineteen Emmy Awards , four Golden Globe Awards , six Satellite Awards and fifty-seven other awards , with wins including the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series -- Musical or Comedy , and Emmy awards for Jane Lynch , guest-star Neil Patrick Harris and Murphy 's direction of the pilot episode . In 2011 , the show once again won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series , and Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer won Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively , and Gwyneth Paltrow won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series . The show was also chosen by Fox to fill the coveted time slot that followed the network 's coverage of Super Bowl XLV in 2011 .   On October 17 , 2013 , in the wake of the death of Cory Monteith three months prior , and one week after his tribute episode `` The Quarterback '' aired , Murphy announced that the sixth season would be the final one of the series . After 121 episodes and over 728 music performances , Glee came to an end on March 20 , 2015 .