How the pieces of a live broadcast fit together — the running order as the spine, the teleprompter, the show clock, and cueing graphics and VTs live — and how to run them from one place.
Collecting your assets and building your graphics is the prep. Running the show is where it all has to come together, live, in order, on time. A live broadcast has a lot of moving parts — a script, timings, VTs, lower thirds, a presenter who needs to know what's next — and the difference between a smooth show and a scramble is whether those parts are driven from one coherent plan or improvised on the fly.
This guide is the map. It covers the four things every live show runs on and how they connect; the deeper walkthroughs for building a running order, the teleprompter and show clocks go further on each.
The running order is the spine
Everything hangs off the running order (or rundown): the ordered list of everything that happens in the show, with durations, and notes on what plays when. It's the single source of truth the whole team works from — the director, the operator, the presenter and the gallery all read the same rundown. Get this right and the rest of the show has a backbone. See how to build a running order.
The teleprompter reads from the plan
Your presenter needs their words, and they need them to match the running order. A teleprompter scrolls the script in sync with the show, ideally driven by an operator who can speed up, slow down and jump as the presenter goes off-script. When the prompter is fed from the same running order everyone else is using, the script and the rundown never drift apart. See using a teleprompter for live shows.
The show clock keeps you to time
Live means finite. A show clock shows where you are against the plan — time into a segment, time remaining, and often a back-timed countdown to a hard out (a break, a hand-off, the top of the hour). A visible, shared clock is how a whole crew stays on the same second. See show clocks and timing a live broadcast.
Cueing graphics and VTs live
As the show runs, someone drives the graphics — taking a lower third on as a guest speaks, rolling a VT, bringing up the sponsor bug, clearing it for a full-screen moment. Those cues live in the running order too, so the graphics operator knows what's coming. (For the graphics themselves, see broadcast graphics and overlays, and for getting VTs in ahead of time, collecting VTs from contributors.)
It works best from one place
The failure mode of live shows is fragmentation: the running order in one doc, the script in another, the clock on someone's phone, the graphics on a separate machine, and no two of them agreeing. The fix is to run them from a single, shared, live plan — so a change to the running order updates the prompter and the clock, and everyone sees it at once.
How Show Runner handles it
Show Runner is built to run the show, not just prep it. You build the running order collaboratively, then drive the show live — the gallery, teleprompter and show clock all follow every cue, and overlays are taken on and off from the same place. Because it's one shared, real-time system, a change to the rundown reaches the prompter, the clock and the operator instantly, and you can export the whole thing as a production pack when you're done.
FAQ
What's the difference between a running order and a script?
The running order (or rundown) is the ordered list of everything that happens in the show, with durations and cues — the structure. The script is the words the presenter says within that structure, usually shown on the teleprompter. They should be linked so the two never drift apart.
How do you keep a live show on time?
With a shared show clock that everyone can see — showing time into the current segment and, ideally, a back-timed countdown to any hard out (a break or hand-off). Combined with per-segment durations in the running order, it lets the team adjust on the fly to hit the out time.
Can more than one person work on the show at once?
Yes — in Show Runner the running order is collaborative and real-time, so the director, operator and producers work on the same rundown simultaneously, and the teleprompter and show clock follow the shared plan as it changes.
Start with the backbone: how to build a running order. Or start for free.