“TV’s Top 50 Showrunners”

THR with this overview. Here are a few writers on the list:

Shawn Ryan
“Terriers” (FX), “Ride-Along”?(Fox)

Ryan admits he is a glutton for punishment. “Terriers” kicks off this month, while a second new show, “Ride-Along,” arrives in February. That’s on the heels of his 2009–10 “Lie To Me” showrunning stint, before which he was doing double duty penning notes for “The Shield” while running “The Unit.” “I’m OK if I’m doing two shows that use different parts of my brain,” he jokes.

Favorite TV Moment: “Watching the pilot episode of ‘Cheers.’ I was a teenager at the time and I remember sitting in my living room — and it was the first time I realized that people actually wrote this show, and they’re better than any writers on any other shows. It inspired me to start writing a few years later.”

Big Break: “Kevin Reilly and Peter Liguori, who were running FX, had no business trusting me with ‘Unit.’ I asked Kevin years later why he had that confidence and he said it was just a gut feeling.”

David Simon
“Treme” (HBO)

The Baltimore Sun reporter-turned TV writer-producer followed up his groundbreaking “The Wire” with a kaleidoscopic chronicle of post-Katrina New Orleans that feels about as close to a documentary as is possible in scripted drama. Tragedy hit the shoot in March when producer David Mills died suddenly of a brain aneurysm, but the show will carry on his legacy with a second-season pickup by HBO.

Favorite TV Moment: “ ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ and its ruminations on the film classic ‘Santa Claus Conquers the Martians’: ‘Old man take a look at your elf, he’s a lot like you.’ “

Big Break: “I sold a book to Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson at about the moment when my home in newspaper journalism began crumbling. [“Homicide” producer] Fontana a) offered me a writing gig; and b) promised to teach me how to produce television. Promise kept.”

Kurt Sutter
“Sons of Anarchy” (FX)

Sutter admits there are challenges when your lead female character is also your wife. “I wrote the role for Katey [Sagal] and it’s been gratifying to see her bring that character to life,” he says. “But it ultimately consumes both of us and it’s been impossible to have boundaries between our personal life and work life.” Still, he’s learning the ropes as FX’s highest-rated show kicks off its third season. “Creatively, I’m a guy who likes to lock myself in my room and write and create. I’ve had to learn that as a showrunner, you just can’t do that.”

Favorite TV Moment: “Watching shows like ‘Hill Street Blues’ and ‘Law & Order,’ I realized this was a different kind of television. I couldn’t understand at the time that it was better writing, more realistic acting and this documentary style — but it had a deep and profound impact on me, and shifted how I was able to watch television.”

Big Break: “I was coming off of ‘The Shield’ and for creative and career reasons needed to make ‘Sons’ work; (FX’s) John Landgraf wanted to make his mark with the network. It was definitely a trial by fire, and I had to learn a lot very quickly, but the network trusted me to pull it off.”

Steven Levitan & Christopher Lloyd
“Modern Family” (ABC)

The showrunning duo, whose credits include “Wings” and “Frasier,” hit ratings and Emmy paydirt again last season with their off-kilter single-camera sitcom. And this time, it’s personal. “A lot of the stories come from my life and the lives of the other writers,” says Levitan, who also made news by questioning the value of airing his show on Hulu and ABC.com. “The Dunphy family is a loose version of my family in a weird way.”

Favorite TV Moment: Lloyd says it’s either the first kiss he wrote for Niles and Daphne on “Frasier” or Buster Douglas’ shocking knockout of Mike Tyson in 1990.

Big Break: “On ‘Wings,’ a story blew up at the table read and needed a completely new take on it, and I came up with the story fix that sort of saved that episode,” Levitan recalls. “They basically told me that if I hadn’t done that, they probably wouldn’t have asked me back.”

The rest of the list is here.

And if you’re interested in following TV writers, some of them showrunners listed above, on Twitter, you can go here to see an extensive list of Tweeting TV writers.