‘Vinyl’ Showrunner Terence Winter Departs

The guard is changing at HBO’s freshman drama Vinyl.

Showrunner Terence Winter has exited the Martin Scorsese-produced series after one season, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

He will be replaced by executive producer Scott Z. Burns going into the sophomore season of the series, which was renewed after one episode back in February.

“As we head into the second season of Vinyl, we have decided it is an appropriate time to make a change in the creative direction of the show,” HBO said Friday in a statement. “We have enjoyed a longtime partnership with Terry Winter at HBO on projects from The Sopranos to Boardwalk Empire to Vinyl, and we look forward to our next collaboration with him. We are pleased to welcome Scott Z. Burns, executive producer and showrunner, and Max Borenstein, executive producer, as the new team helming the show.”

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Vinyl, which stars Bobby Cannavale as a ‘70s record executive trying to save his company, opened to disappointing ratings for the pay cabler. The two-hour series premiere averaged just 760,000 viewers in live-plus-same-day numbers. However, the show was quickly renewed for a second season no doubt due to its impressive auspices including Scorsese as well as Mick Jagger. The series has two more episodes to air this season.

Winter previously worked with Scorsese, as well as Cannavale, on another HBO original, Boardwalk Empire, which ran for five seasons. With The Leftovers renewed for a third and final season and no season-three renewal for True Detective, Vinyl is currently one of just two original dramas on the network, including Game of Thrones. HBO was forced to halt production on another big-budget original drama, Westworld, earlier this year. However, the network also landed a hot property last week with Amy Adams’ upcoming drama series Sharp Objects, based on the book by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn.

Burns is a surprising choice as Winter’s replacement, given his lack of TV experience. His credits are largely in the film world, having written such pics as Contagion and The Informant! Borenstein most recently served as an executive producer on Fox’s short-lived TV adaptation of Minority Report.