Kenya Barris Reinvented the Family Comedy With Black-ish. Now He’ll Do It Again at Netflix

Adweek’s TV Creator of the Year is the latest showrunner to leave network TV for the streaming service

Some television creators depend on large doses of caffeine, sugar or pharmaceuticals to help them do their jobs. Kenya Barris takes a different approach. “I’m one of those guys who is fueled by my fear,” says Barris, who created ABC’s Black-ish and its hit spinoff, Freeform’s Grown-ish. “I use that to remind me to dot my i’s and cross my t’s, and everything else that goes along with someone who is constantly neurotic and thinking that everything is going to fall apart.”

Barris is going to have plenty of that fuel to draw on, now that he has departed longtime home ABC Studios and signed a lucrative new deal with Netflix, which could be worth as much as $100 million.

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This story first appeared in the October 15, 2018, issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.