The Women Behind Your Favorite TV Shows

GIRLS: An unknown 25-year-old lands her own HBO series and drastically improves your Sunday nights. Lena Dunham gets a lot of credit for "Girls," but she didn't do it alone.

Thank Sue Naegle. After watching Dunham's film "Tiny Furniture," the HBO Entertainment President made it her mission to create a show with the young talent. Along with "Veep" and "Enlightened," Naegle is responsible for green-lighting all the post-"Sex and the City" female characters who make premium cable worth the money. Unlike Dunham's character Hannah, Naegle was a go-getter in her 20's. She worked her way up from the mail room of an entertainment agency, and became known for her ability to spot talented, quirky writers with original bodies of work. Now married to longtime "Simpsons" writer Dana Gould, she's raising three young daughters. As their boss, Naegle has a strict no-TV-on-weeknights policy. "I'm much tougher on my kids," she told the Hollywood Reporter.

HOMELAND: Are you one of those people who insists "Homeland" is the best show on television?

Give some credit to Dana Walden. As Co-Chairman of 20th Century Fox Television, Walden, 48, runs the studio behind "Homeland," "The New Girl" and "Modern Family." Okay, but what does she do? Everything from script rewrites to brokering international sales deals."Glee" creator Ryan Murphy actually refers to Walden as a surrogate mother, after working with the honcho on his own show. Walden, now a mom of two pre-teens, had to contend with her share of sexism on the way up. She recalls her first job interview with a male talent agent who told her to be a typist, like other "pretty girls." Walden thought at the time, "one day you're going to regret saying that."

DOWNTON ABBEY: Relax: the new season starts January 6th, but you probably already knew that. What you don't know is who's behind the series.

Rebecca Eaton is executive producer of the "Masterpiece" franchise. The Boston native, 65, grew up obsessed with all the things Jane Eyre. Now she's spread her love of bonneted-British romance to the rest of America. As the third E.P. for the famed series--she inherited the role from another woman boss in 1985--she selects and oversees adaptations of her favorite Austen novels, as well as "Abbey's" production. Around the time she landed her dream job, she had a child with her husband. She credits him with supporting her career by playing stay-at-home dad. If you weren't already sold on this woman, consider how she relaxes after work: "I drink sherry, martinis or Manhattans," Eaton told the Reporter. If you crossed Don Draper with the Bronte sisters and Dame Judy Dench, you'd get something close to Eaton. She is, however, an original.

SCANDAL: Last week, the new show about a White House crisis management team, had its highest ratings yet. The reason? Serious plot twist.

No surprise there: it's a Shonda Rhimes show. The creator of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice," has a knack for strong female leads and giddily explosive plot twists. With "Scandal"--ABC's newest hit starring Kerry Wasington as a strong female lead--Shonda has become Hollywood's go-to hit-maker. She's also the only woman currently running three shows at once. Her biggest accomplishment this year, however, is a new baby girl. She adopted her second child in February. The career advice she'll pass on to her two daughters? "Never enter a negotiation you're not willing to walk away from."

STORAGE WARS: The reality series has ushered in a new era of game shows, combining "what's behind door number #3" with "Hoarders."

Under Abbe Raven's watch, "Pawn Stars" and "Coming Home" were born. But the 59-year-old CEO and President of A&E Entertainment Group really brought it home with "Storage Wars."" "We're always looking for what's next," Raven told the Reporter. That's so Raven. When the former school teacher decided she wanted to try her hand at TV, she got a job making copies for a cable network and worked her way up. "If you learn the business from the bottom up, it's a huge advantage," she told The New York Times. Her other tactic? Loyalty. She attributes a lot of her success to her mom, who graduated college same day as her Abbe. The dutiful daughter skipped her own ceremony to see her mom in cap and gown, "because I knew how long she waited to get there."

24/7 KARDASHIAN PROGRAMMING: I think we can all agree that watching the Kardashians lounge on couches in 5-inch boots for hours on end will never get old.

Somehow, Lisa Berger, president of entertainment programming at E!, anticipated this phenomenon. The 48-year-old mom of two also had the good mind to pick up "Chelsea Lately" and "Married to a Jonas." But the real reason her network is in the top 10 among women, ages 18-49, has much to do with her genius for time-wasting programming. Kardashians in Miami, in New York, in private planes, in very short-lived marriages! Seeing their slack-jawed faces and curtains of hair sends a Pavlovian signal to our brains to take five, maybe ten hours off.

USA CRIME DRAMAS: "White Collar" is like watching a cop show at a spa. Why does it feel so good to put your eyes on it? Matthew Bomer, for starters.

But also this lady. Bonnie Hammer, 61, is behind the "blue skies" programming on USA hour-long dramas. As the network's programming head, she created an "aspirational" look by mandating shows be shot outside on sunny, beautiful days. She also ensures gun-toting characters dress in swanky suits and colors that pop, rather than drab trench coats. The scripts for shows like "White Collar," "Suits" and "Royal Pains," have similar mandates. Characters must be colorful, quirky and a little "off." Who would have thought crime dramas could feel so much like an episode of "Friends"? A woman, I guess. The 62-year-old mom is also credited with launching Bob Vila's career, back when she was a young public television producer in Boston. Now she's one of Forbes' "Most Powerful Women in Hollywood" and, according to the Times, "the Queen of Cable TV."

LIZ AND DICK: I know, I know you hated "Liz and Dick." You hated it so much you want to talk about it a lot and relive all the campy, ridiculous moments.

That's fine by Lifetime honcho Nancy Dubuc. The 43-year-old A&E excutive convinced the network to embrace a biopic, and then convinced Lindsay Lohan to take the lead. A big, controversial star and a true life movie that doesn't involve a deranged stalker? It's like Lifetime on crack. Dubuc credits her ballsy success, in part, to her supportive female boss. Remember Abbe Raven ("Storage Wars")? Not only is she a mentor to Dubuc, she helped deliver her baby when Dubuc's husband couldn't make it to the hospital on time. Talk about a Lifetime moment.

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