First announced by series creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane in an interview on August 13, 2009, the episode was written by series regular Patrick Meighan, and directed by series regular John Holmquist shortly after the conclusion of the production of the eighth season. In the interview, with "The Hollywood Reporter", MacFarlane conceded that "Family Guy" tends to be very liberal because "it's written by liberals". In choosing the conservatives who would be featured in the episode, MacFarlane stated, "we put it out there to a lot of Republicans — 'we're doing this show, who wants in?' — and we got some bites." Series regulars Peter Shin and James Purdum served as supervising director, with Andrew Goldberg, Alex Carter, Elaine Ko and Spencer Porter serving as staff writers for the episode. Composer Walter Murphy, who has worked on the series since its inception, returned to compose the music for "Excellence in Broadcasting". It is the first episode to feature a high-definition opening credit sequence.