Recode Decode: Ilene Chaiken, showrunner, ‘Empire’

Ilene Chaiken, the creator of “The L Word” and showrunner for “Empire,” talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2017 edition of Werk It, WNYC’s women-in-podcasting festival. Chaiken explains how she got “The L Word” made at Showtime, even though the network initially laughed at the idea of a show about lesbians in Hollywood, and how became executive producer of the hit Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which she had tried to adapt for years. Now in an exclusive deal at 20th Century Fox, Chaiken says the massive reach of broadcast TV is still an important cultural force, and predicts that the digital platforms like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and Apple will take turns being big award winners.

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