--- description: Showrunner Shonda Rhimes talks to TIME about how to create a TV landscape that reflects what the real world looks like title: Shonda Rhimes on raising the next generation of TV producers image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt17e3d20cc721db24/69886956428a9e05a5ccfb8e/shonda_still.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 22, 2015 # Shonda Rhimes on Raising the Next Generation of TV Producers by [Sam Lansky](/author/sam-lansky/), [Francesca Trianni](/author/francesca-trianni/) and [Eliza Berman](/author/eliza-berman/)  Few people have changed the face of television over the last decade more than showrunner Shonda Rhimes. The creator of _Grey’s Anatomy_ and _Scandal_ and executive producer of _How to Get Away With Murder_ has developed a stable of shows in which black women fill leading roles and equal weight is given to characters who are—as Oprah put it in her 2013 TIME 100 [tribute](http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/shonda-rhimes/ "undefined") to Rhimes—“gay, straight, single, divorced, lost, searching.” And these stories are far from niche offerings—growing [audiences](http://www.thewrap.com/shondaland-abc-how-to-get-away-with-murder-greys-anatomy-scandal/ "undefined") and the [Television Academy](http://time.com/4042100/emmys-2015-viola-davis-win/ "undefined") alike continue to prove their universal appeal. Rhimes grew up in a household where creativity was a virtue, with a mother who took her storytelling seriously from the moment she began spinning yarns. When she broke out with the wildly successful _Grey’s Anatomy_ in 2005, she found a cadre of women in Hollywood eager to help cultivate her future in the industry. Rather than meeting with competition, she says, “The women that I have met in this town have always been really embracing.” When asked how we might continue to build a television landscape that more closely reflects the diversity of the real world, Rhimes’ answer is simple. “It’s who is telling the stories,” she says, “because the people telling the stories are the people deciding who you see onscreen, they’re the people who are deciding who are in the writers rooms, they’re the people deciding on the crew.” The onus, she says, is on her and her colleagues to raise a generation of showrunners to fill those screens, those writers rooms and those crews with storytellers who reflect the full range of human experience. 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