For all its desire to be creative, to reflect the society it finds itself in, and to pursue other worthy and intellectually satisfying ends, television production is a business. Its producers look for people and organisations to fund production so that they can earn a fee from their participation in it and, in many cases, share in profits from commercial exploitation of the program produced. The financers of the production invest in it to share in the expected profitable return from marketing the program when it is made, or so that they can broadcast the program to reap advertising revenue (if they are a commercial channel), or to fulfil their obligation to subscribers (if they are a pay channel), or fulfil their statutory obligations (if they are a public broadcaster).

The first phase of generating return on investment is to license the program to as many broadcasters around the world as can be secured (see Chapters 8 and 11), some of whom contract by way of pre-sale to buy the program in advance of it being made, and so contribute to the production's funding. The next stage of marketing is to find other means of delivering the program to audiences apart from broadcast, which might mean cinema release, or videocassette (VHS) and DVD sales. A third marketing outlet, under the general umbrella term of new media, is growing in importance as new options in this broad category continue to emerge.