How Adweek Media Visionary Shonda Rhimes Rewrote the Rules of TV

Even before Shonda Rhimes started writing for TV, she knew it was a medium where she would not only thrive, but also dominate. “I remember saying to my agent, ‘I want to take over the world through TV,’” Rhimes recalls. “It sounds crazy to say this now, but at the time, it wasn’t really a joke. It was something I felt like I could really do.” As Hollywood has since learned, once Rhimes sets her mind on something, she’s unstoppable. Over the past two decades, the creator has accomplished exactly what she set out to—an achievement that has led to her being named Adweek’s Media Visionary. It started with hit ABC shows like Grey’s Anatomy (her very first series, now in its 18th season) and Scandal, where Kerry Washington became the first Black woman since 1974 to lead a broadcast series. When the Rhimes-produced How to Get Away With Murder debuted in 2014, ABC devoted its entire Thursday night lineup to shows created or produced by her—branded as TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday)—making her the first producer since Aaron Spelling two decades earlier to own a full night of broadcast shows. Then, Rhimes shook up the industry again in 2017, becoming the first major creator to leave linear TV for streaming, moving her Shondaland production company to Netflix as part of a nine-figure megadeal that offered her unprecedented freedom. As she told Netflix’s now co-CEO Ted Sarandos, “I want to make shows, put them on the air, and I don't want anybody to bother me while I'm doing it.” Bridgerton, her first show produced under that deal, debuted last Christmas and became Netflix’s most-watched original series ever. It has already been renewed for three more seasons and will also spawn a prequel, written by Rhimes. But before that, on Feb. 11, 2022, Netflix will debut the Rhimes-created limited series Inventing Anna, about real-life con artist Anna Sorokin, who passed herself off as a German heiress among New York’s social elite. And Rhimes isn’t done upending the TV business. In July, she extended her groundbreaking Netflix deal, expanding the streamer’s partnership with Shondaland to include film, merchandise, VR, gaming and live events like the Bridgerton-inspired Queens Ball installment that will tour the U.S. and Canada next year. In other words, she is just getting warmed up. Rhimes reflected on her storied career and opened up about the secret of Grey’s Anatomy’s longevity, her TGIT-fueled contract leverage, why it took longer than expected to find her way at Netflix, what she wants to do next and much more. Here are highlights from her conversation with Adweek: Adweek: When you first decided to be a writer, what was your goal?Shonda Rhimes: When I arrived in L.A. to go to film school, I was just trying to make a plan to figure out some sort of a future. I really went to film school because I heard it was harder to get into than Harvard Law School at the time, and I needed to go to graduate school and figure out my life. But when I started working and had a moment to really watch television and see what was going on, I remember thinking, "This is something I can do—and this is something I want to do." You started in film first before moving to TV. Was that a conscious decision? How did you end up on that path?At the time, all anybody wanted to do is film. Television was the left-out cousin that nobody wanted to talk to. I remember people being very surprised when I said I wanted to write for TV. If you remember, Grey's Anatomy came out the same season as Lost and Desperate Housewives. It was a big switch in how television was being perceived at the time. Before that year, people were like, “You really want to do TV? Are you sure?” I remember watching the whole season of 24 in 24 hours, and I watched West Wing. I caught all the television that I missed growing up and thought, yeah, that's where all the character development is. That's where all the interesting stuff is happening. Grey’s Anatomy, Rhimes' first series, is now in its 18th season. With Grey’s Anatomy, you hit it out of the park with your first show. A lot of times when something starts out big in TV, it soon peters out. Obviously, that didn’t happen with Grey’s. How were you able to sustain that momentum, which is almost harder in some ways than making a hit show?Yeah, I think sustaining a show is very, very difficult. Part of what drove the success was that I didn't have any rules. I had not grown up in television; Grey's was my first show. So to me, there weren't any rules. And so my whole idea was that we would end every season having absolutely no idea what we're going to do next season; you'd leave it all on the floor. And to me, every season was a different season. It was about something different and completely fresh. I tried to keep it that way, mainly so that I, as a writer, would stay interested and excited to see these people evolve. You can't write a show that you're bored writing, and if you're bored writing it, the audience is going to be bored [watching] it. You soon created Private Practice and Scandal, and were then running three shows at once. It’s hard enough to have one show; how did you juggle three?You have to have people working with you that you believe in as writers. Otherwise, you're gonna to die. But it was a brutal pace. And you have to remember, I had two shows, and then I had two shows and two kids. And I had three shows, and I had three shows and three kids. So it wasn't like I was doing anything at home, either [laughs]. It was a very, very busy time. But the other thing about being super busy is you stay really focused, organized and disciplined. In a lot of ways, it was a lot of fun, because it was relief. Grey's had this pedigree, and the fans were—they still are—very serious about that show. And I wanted something where I could try other things without the fans having a fit. And then after doing Private Practice for a while and really enjoying that, it felt like, I am ready to try a completely different genre and do something completely different [by making Scandal]. So it was more about, I had three things that were exciting to me. 'Scandal was the show that really pioneered the whole live-tweeting thing,' Rhimes recalls. You also began executive producing shows that you had not created yourself, like How to Get Away With Murder. What was behind your decision to grow Shondaland in that way?We had all these good writers that we were working with. What was wonderful about Grey's was that we were a tight-knit family of writers. I could see very clearly up close how talented these other writers were. [Producing partner] Betsy Beers and I understood that we had power, and I wanted to use that power to be able to protect other writers and to give them the experience that I was able to have, which was fun to do. We now have multiple nights of broadcast TV devoted to shows from the same producer, but with TGIT in 2014, you were the first in two decades to own an entire night of TV. Did that mean something to you at the time, or did you see it as just a clever marketing hook with TGIT?Oh, no, it meant something! I remember the power of it. I remember that we were in contract renegotiations. The day of the [ABC] upfronts, I had yet to define and sign my contract. And there was a messenger standing outside my door, while everybody argued on the phone, with a piece of paper waiting for me to sign it so that I can then go to upfronts. It was a big deal for the network, and it was a big deal to me. I don't think I realized how momentous it was until stepping out onto that stage and the response, but it was a big deal. I remember going into the 2016-17 TV season where Scandal would be delayed until midseason because of Kerry’s pregnancy, you tweeted something to the effect of, “TGIT will come back midseason,” and any notion ABC might have had of using that brand for non-Shonda shows really fell by the wayside.I remember very clearly getting a call in the morning, two days before the upfronts or something, where they were telling me when Scandal was going to come back [at midseason]. We were talking about that and Kerry's pregnancy and somebody was saying to me, “So, we're just letting you know how the schedule is going.” I said, “That's great. As long as you're not calling Thursday night TGIT in the fall”—and there being this very long silence. And them being like, “Well, it's still TGIT.” I said, “No, that's a different brand. What you're suggesting is that that show in between"—which I'm sure is a perfectly good show, I don't remember what it was [ed. note: it was a short-lived drama called Notorious]—“is from us. And it's not. That brand belongs to Shondaland.” What was nice was that ABC was very understanding about that. How to Get Away With Murder, starring Viola Davis, ushered in TGIT in 2014. Let’s talk about your decision to leave for Netflix, which is crazy to think was announced only four years ago, and how different the industry was then. I think some people forget that you were the first major creator to take this leap. At the time, how tough was that decision? How nervous were you, going out on a limb that nobody had been on before?What was fascinating was that I wasn't nervous. And I didn't feel like it was a tough leap. I remember saying really clearly to my team, “Go get me a meeting at Netflix. I really want to go meet at Netflix.” Yes, Ted [Sarandos] had been coming by my house for a while, dropping off DVDs and stuff, but it was more about the product they were making and the budgets. For all of the success at ABC, it was still, you're making a certain brand of television for a certain network, which I was always proud to do and really happy to do. But the same ball is still being pushed up the hill every time. And it didn't feel insane to me to make the leap to what I saw very clearly as the next area of television. I was watching Netflix all the time. So if I'm watching Netflix all the time, I have to assume that people from my audience are starting to watch Netflix too. One of my first thoughts at that time was that you had pioneered the art of live-tweeting every episode of your shows, which was such a big part of the Shondaland brand, but people don’t watch Netflix shows all at the same time. Did that cross your mind?Yes. Scandal was the show that really pioneered the whole live-tweeting thing. And I don't know how else to say this, but once everybody's doing it, something's not that cool anymore. So once everybody was doing it, and it was being written into people's contracts … I remember getting a question even by the time How to Get Away With Murder started, where they were like, “Did the audience test your hashtags?” And me being like, “I don't even know what to say to that.” Once the network's making the hashtag and the fans aren't, live-tweeting is over as far as I'm concerned. It's not an event; it's a byproduct. Shondaland Moves Beyond TV As part of your move to Netflix, you had to step back from your ABC shows. How difficult was that?Before I left, I very clearly put Grey's in the hands of somebody that I felt good about [current showrunner Krista Vernoff]. That was important to me, finding a good caretaker for the baby. But the hardest thing wasn't that as much as it was making the choice to end Scandal [in the 2017-18 season], because there was nobody I could hand that show off to. It took three years for Shondaland’s first scripted show to get on Netflix. Had you intended to have that long of a gestation period?Well, the first year, I was finishing Scandal. And then after that, it really was just about getting up and running. All I can say is it's a completely different animal. It's like moving to a different country and discovering you don't speak any of the language. And yeah, I was watching my peers put out shows left and right. I had two things that were really important to me: One, I wanted whatever we put out to be really, really good. I wanted to deliver what I had said I was going to deliver. And two, I wanted to make sure that we were making shows the way Netflix made shows, versus under a network model. And both of those things, it took some time developing and building the show. What was it about Bridgerton that not only made you say, this is the show I want to do, but this is the show I want to do first? Because there was going to be so much attention on your first Netflix show?One, Bridgerton was [one of] these books that I was obsessed by, and so it was very much a show that I wanted to watch. Betsy [Beers] and I always say we only make shows we really, really want to watch. Two, from the pitch to the scripts, my writer was ready first. I had been working with a baby writer [Bridgerton creator Chris Van Dusen] who I've known for a long time. And then three, yeah, there's some intelligence to making the first show not the first show I wrote. I felt like it took away a lot of the drama that would have been involved in putting out the show. I was not interested in making it all about me. I wanted to make clear that it wasn't all about me; it was about the company. I wanted to leave some people's expectations at the door simply because there is a Shonda show that we had been making for ABC, and that was not necessarily what we were going to be continuing to make. Plus, I was really enjoying just the pure fun that comes with producing. To take a book, and then say, let's attach this talent and this talent and put it all together—and to do it when I'm not running three shows and running in and out of a room—was so much fun. The more I looked at us as a storytelling company, and not as a TV company, the more I could see the opportunities that were available to us.Rhimes on evolving Shondaland The diverse casting you brought to that show, I don’t think there are many other producers we would have seen that from. It seems like that was a big priority for you.I always say, I want to see people who look like me on television, not, I'm going to send a message here. [Bridgerton breakout star] Regé-Jean Page is hot, and interesting, and an incredible actor, and I wanted to see him play the Duke. That felt important to me—and it wasn't because of the fact that he had brown skin; it was more about the fact of who he was as an actor and then building a world around him that made sense, which is what I thought was interesting. The idea of taking the idea of Queen Charlotte and playing with that a little bit was fun and great for us to do. But diversity is only a luxury that you have if you are not a person of color. Very good point. That Christmas Day drop for Bridgerton was also smart, because it was during this holiday period of a week or two where there’s very rarely anything new on TV. Did you work with Netflix on that?Credit where credit is due, the marketing and drop date of that show was the brilliance of Netflix. That was part of what I loved about my first experience with them was that they really know how to market a show, and they know exactly when to drop a show. And I had the luxury of being like, this all looks great to me, because I also was without the stress of having to worry about, what are the ratings gonna be? True, you didn’t have to worry about ratings, but as the show was about to debut, were you thinking anything like, “as long as X happens, I’ll be happy”?Really my only thing was at the time, if the powers that be at Netflix are happy, then I'm happy—and they were already happy with the show. Because you have to understand that one of my goals for going to Netflix was to no longer be worried about live-tweeting, to no longer have to deal with ratings. The idea that I could just make shows, that's all I wanted to do. I remember saying this to Ted: “I want to make shows, put them on the air and I don't want anybody to bother me while I'm doing it.” And he laughed, but that's kind of what we got to do. And to have it do so well was spectacular because then I felt like Netflix's money was well spent. Their gamble was a good gamble. You don't want to be a disappointment to anybody. But I don't think I worried about how it would be seen or how it would be accepted. That's a luxury that I've been given now at Netflix, or maybe that I've just given myself, that I'm enjoying. What was your first indication that not only were people responding to Bridgerton, but it was connecting with audiences in such a big way?I was off the internet for the holiday, but I remember that I kept getting emails from the powers that be at Netflix, saying, “We're really happy and everything is good.” But I still didn’t have a number to compare it to, so I didn't know how good. It wasn't until we had a call where they give you some preliminary information. I remember getting the 82 million household number and me asking very innocently, “If I am a student in class, did I get an A? Did a get a B? Did I get a C?”—because that's how I think—and everyone very clearly being like, “This is more than an A,” and feeling good about that. Bridgerton, Rhimes' first show produced under the Netflix deal, debuted last Christmas and became the platform's most-watched original series ever. It was very interesting to see the spread of people who were interested in the show. But I don't have one moment. Maybe … Hillary Clinton did email me to say, “How does one get over a Regé-Jean Page addiction?" I think that qualifies! Bridgerton was quickly renewed, not only for a second season, but a third and fourth. What’s your long-term plan for the show?We went in very clearly saying that there are eight books, so there are going to be eight seasons. And part of the adjustment at Netflix is this idea that that's not how they do things. I would go, “So, we're just going to make eight seasons of this.” To me, eight seasons of eight episodes doesn't sound like a lot. That’s not even a year of episodes of [when I had three] ABC shows! But that's just not how they lay things out. And so after the first season, I remember getting on the phone with them and saying, “Look, if we're going to make more seasons, let's say we make Seasons 2 through 4. If we do that, then that means that we can hang onto our stages, our costumes, our actors, our crew … ” I wanted much shorter gaps between my shows airing, and I thought if we plan for that, then that will work. And to their credit, they were like, “You're absolutely right,” and so that's what we did. So that means Season 3 and 4 will be able to come out in a shorter time frame than we’ll see between Seasons 1 and 2?Right. If we had just gone into Season 2 right after making Season 1, we would have been able to air [again] at Christmas, but we didn't. Shondaland is one of the only production companies that really has its own brand and now exists side by side with your own personal brand. Had that been intentional on your part?It was intentional in terms of the shows we were going to make, the stories we were going to tell and things like the website and the podcasts and all the work that we're doing. Even our brand partnerships—it was just about working with people who saw women and people of color as full, three-dimensional human beings on this planet. And women who get to be smart and messy and unclean and bitter and competitive, and all the things that people actually are, as opposed to being some weird ideals. I wanted to show the wide spectrum of humanity as it actually stands. And it was a very clear choice to make clear that that was who we were as a company, too. At what point did you start broadening Shondaland’s horizons beyond TV shows?I'd written a book [2015’s Year of Yes] and that opened up a bunch of different doors that I thought were really interesting. I went on a book tour and discovered that the audience wasn't just a theoretical audience. The audience was really out there, and they were hungry for more stories to be told. They were also relating to things like the book in a way that I had not expected. And so, to have that happen made me feel like, people aren't being served really, so let's create more product for people who want to be a part of it and want to stick with Shondaland, even when it's not just Thursday night. The more I looked at us as a storytelling company, and not as a TV company, the more I could see the opportunities that were available to us. The idea that podcasts were another way to delve into our audience—the website was exciting to me and gaming is exciting to me, because that's a whole other form of storytelling. If you look at it, the fastest growing groups of gamers are people of color and young women. So that felt like another world that could be entered. As Bridgerton exploded earlier this year, it felt like you were able to leverage or tap into the ways you had expanded Shondaland. Did that accelerate your expansion plans, or was it almost kismet that you were able to tap into all these tentacles you had already been able to build in the company?I am going to say that maybe there was a chicken and the egg thing going on here for you. You say Bridgerton exploded and these things happened; I think these things happened and then Bridgerton exploded. We had a very clear idea the things that we wanted to do with the show, with merchandise, with things that Netflix hadn't been doing before with a first-season show. They were like, “We don't do this at the beginning of the season.” We kept saying, and I probably sounded quite arrogant to them, “You don't understand what Shondaland is. It's gonna have an audience.” So we were making plans. My head of design and merchandising [Sandie Bailey] was making plans about stuff like this well before the show aired. The podcast and all the extra video footage and all the stuff that we shot that they don't usually do for a first-season show, all that had been completed ahead of time, because we were very aware that there was going to be a place to feed the audience this information. This all occurs as you’re negotiating your second deal with Netflix. How did your priorities change for the second deal? What were the most important elements for you now versus when you first made the leap in 2017?Making the deal in 2017 was really building a plane while you're flying it. Nobody had ever done this before; nobody had ever created this model before. And so it was about figuring out how to build a model that made sense. Coming from a world of network television, I wanted a sense of ownership and all of those things. This version was more about, I feel like fine-tuning it and now I know how to drive the car, let's add some stuff. And it was great to put in things like gaming, that there were these other aspects of the world that we could be a part of. We were already dealing with the merchandise and some of that stuff, but formalizing all of it was great to do. One big element of this deal is that Netflix is investing in your efforts to create diversity and equity programs to boost workplace inclusion Netflix-wide.I know that Netflix has a lot of interesting programs already in place. What I wanted was for there to be a real investment in the idea that at Shondaland, we would be using our shows to provide people with the experience or the opportunity necessary to launch their career, further their career, get into a union … all of those things that seem like very hard roads to follow if you don't have a path. And we wanted to be able to help provide that path. After leaving the broadcast world, you are now able to be completely in the driver’s seat when it comes to deciding which brands you want to work with at Shondland, like Dove and Peloton. What did you look for in determining whether a brand partnership is right for you and right for Shondaland?There are two things that I think are super important about that: One is authenticity. We targeted Dove because I use Dove products. We started talking about Peloton because I'm obsessed with my Peloton bike, not because there was some cash offer involved. To me, there's no integrity in that. But I really wanted to be in a place where if I was really into it, hopefully our fans will be really into it, too. And then two is the integrity of the company. We always are looking at the company to see what else they're doing. What are their diversity, equity and inclusion ideas? What are their ideas about abled people and disabled people? What are their thoughts about how they're going to be inclusive? And what are the things that they're not doing? We've been really clear about both the personal integrity of the products, but also the integrity of the company. It’s like moving to a different country and discovering you don’t speak any of the language.Rhimes on her initial leap from ABC to Netflix Are you on the lookout for other partnerships?I'm always on the lookout for partnerships that I think could be interesting and make sense. I'm not of the mind that I've discovered every company yet. So I fully believe that there are companies out there that aren't on my radar in the same way, simply because I don't leave the house enough, I guess. Sometimes people on my team will come in and say, “Here's something you haven't thought of before.” Again, I still have to really like it and we have to feel really good about it, but those partnerships often turn out to be some of our most interesting, In February, Netflix will release Inventing Anna, which is the first show you’ve created since Scandal. Is it like riding a bike, where you just pick it up right away, or were you worried you might be out of practice after a few years?Writing a close-ended, nine-episode story is completely different. There's making 20 or 24 episodes [a season] of something and there's making nine. The pace is just different, and maybe easier, but maybe harder in some ways, because you are expending such a huge amount of energy to create something that's only going to last nine episodes. I never thought about that as being a drawback. I was like, oh, we would expend all this energy, and I would make a show and then it lasts for seven years. I would always say if you're gonna make something, you better really love it, because it's gonna last forever, because the shows never go off the air. But this is nine episodes, and we're out. And just when you're starting to fall in love with all the characters and really getting to know them and enjoying working with the actors, it's done. So it wasn't like riding a bicycle. It was like riding a horse versus riding a bicycle. In February, Netflix will debut the Rhimes-created limited series Inventing Anna, based on real-life con artist Anna Sorokin. You still have a foot in broadcast with Grey’s and Station 19. But is there anything you miss about broadcast TV at all?No. Television is evolving so quickly, and the ways we are watching television are changing so quickly. Grey's is like the last dinosaur that's roaming the earth in the best way. People still love it, it's still there, it's still ruling and that's amazing. But I don't think television is going to be made that way for very much longer anymore, not even by network TV. And I've enjoyed having both experiences. There's something really exciting and creative about where everything is moving. As you look ahead, what do you still want to do that you haven’t been able to do yet?We got slowed down a little bit by the pandemic, but now that we're building out our slate, putting out a strong slate of shows is exciting to me. I'm really interested in the storytelling that's involved in things like gaming. I'm really interested in the future things like NFTs and finding out how that can relate to real creative work that I'm doing. I'm always curious about, what's the next thing? When you’re thinking about gaming, are you thinking about game extensions of your shows, or brand-new stories in the gaming world?I'm thinking about the game that can become the book that can become the television show that can become the movie franchise. I think there are stories that can start in gaming that couldn't necessarily start anyplace else. The same way there are stories that work in television that wouldn't work as movies or any anyplace else, and stories that work as podcasts that wouldn't work anyplace else. I'm very interested in the stories that you can start to tell in games, and going from there. I'm not necessarily interested in making Bridgerton the game [laughs]. Those don't feel intrinsically natural to a storytelling process. Whereas if you start in the gaming world, then you are telling a story that feels authentic to the gaming world and you can grow from there. As our Media Visionary, you have been an industry pioneer in so many areas, and we’ve talked about a lot of them. As you look back on your career, is there anything you’re most proud of?One is literally changing the faces that you see on television and changing the face of television. That to me feels like, if that's the only thing I'm remembered for, it's a bummer that I need to be remembered for it. But also, if that's the only thing I'm remembered for, I'm extremely proud of that. I'm also really proud of the things that we did, like pioneering live-tweeting on a television show, so that we were creating a moment around TV. And owning a night of television is something to be proud of, too. There's a lot. But I also feel like I'm just extremely lucky that I get to do what I do every day. I get to literally sit around and make up stories for a living, and it's worked out. So that is not a thing to complain about. Shonda Rhimes on Bridgerton Season 2 and Whether It’s Time to End Grey’s Anatomy