Television began making its programs using multiple cameras in a television studio. It saw a golden era in the 1960s with studio-based variety and sitcom, but with the development of lightweight field recording equipment and sophisticated post-production, most program-making activity is now on location in single-camera production. The ease of operation of modern cameras and editing has negated much of the cost and efficiency advantage of multi-camera production. However, live programs, apart from live news crosses, still require multi-camera coverage. The mobility of television's recording equipment has enabled it to cover live events, particularly sporting events, on location at a high level of technical and production sophistication. Central to its production is an outside broadcast (OB) van, basically a studio on wheels. This is not an innovation in itself, since OB production has been with television from the start, but it has progressed considerably from the early clunky units.

The approaches to development and pre-production already covered will apply in one form or another to studio and OB production. The concept still has to be developed into a fleshed-out proposal, but most studio and OB programs are produced by the network that will broadcast them, even if they contract out the production. Funding may not be outsourced from other broadcasters, distributors or investors, but found from within the network's budgeting, although it may be offset by an interest group underwriting some of the cost. For commercial broadcasters, the estimated advertising revenue that a program might attract determines its funding viability.