We may live in a brave new video world where it’s tough to tell where TV leaves off and the Internet, your cell phone and your game-system box begin, but it’s still governed — more sternly than ever — by television’s oldest rule: You’ve got to have hit shows.

“Hit shows are even more important than they used to be, if that’s possible,” said veteran TV comedy producer Jenny Bicks, speaking at a gathering of 5,000 TV executives gathered in Miami Beach on Monday. “Because with all these options viewers have, it’s just about cutting through the noise and clutter.”

Bicks made her remarks during a panel discussion of TV production, part of the National Association of Program Executives convention, which kicked off its three-day run Monday at the Fontainebleau Hotel.

Her theme — that the big-bang expansion of video entertainment options has made TV a place for survival of the hit-est — was a common one during a day of seminars and discussions with titles like A Hit Is A Hit Is A Hit and Making A Footprint in a Crowded Space: How Producers Make Their Mark on Television.

The desperation has even spread to premium-cable movie channels, which have seen their core business — showing films — gobbled up by DVD and streaming-video services like Netflix. Chris Albrecht, president and CEO of Starz, a network of 17 movie channels, said he decided that high-impact original programming was the only way to make his company’s brand name stand out from the crowd.

“We have to go out there and grab an audience,” Albrecht said, adding that he wanted shows “a little larger than life.”

He got the buzz he wanted when Kelsey Grammer won a Golden Globe earlier this month for his role as a corrupt Chicago mayor in the dark, violent Starz series Boss — a show Albrecht wanted so badly he bought it without even seeing a pilot episode, almost unheard of in the television industry.

Albrecht said one critically acclaimed show like Boss was worth more than a whole schedule of good-but-not-great programming. “It’s more important than ever to be unique rather than creating a lot of tonnage,” he argued.

The changing nature of the television business has also changed the definition of what constitutes a hit.

“It’s very different than it was 10 years ago,” said Michael Schur, executive producer of the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation. “It’s anything that’s sticky and people are passionate about.”

With television ratings splintered between so many channels, Schur said, hit shows are more defined by audience fanaticism than by Nielsen numbers. He cited the example of ABC’s sci-fi series Lost, which nearly everybody in the industry regarded as a major hit.

“People were insane about Lost, people’s heads exploded over Lost”" Schur said — but noted that the show’s much anticipated final episode in 2010 finished behind that of Mr. Belvedere, an unlamented sitcom of the late 1980s about an American family with a British butler.

Hits can come from unexpected directions, said Bicks, a producer of HBO’s Sex and the City who now works on Showtime’s Th e Big C —television’s only cancer comedy. Starring Laura Linney as a patient with terminal melanoma, the show may sound like the dictionary definition of an anti-hit, but critical praise and the loud cheers of a loyal following have made it the network’s darling. The Big C is about to start a third season.

The show’s subject matter has certainly repelled some viewers — “I know some people who haven’t watched it and never will, because they’re scared by it,” Bicks said — but probably also pulled in others who were intrigued by the seemingly outrageous premise. Bicks herself, who produces The Big C but didn’t create it, is part of the second group.

“I heard that somebody had written a cancer comedy, so I asked my agent to get me a copy of the script,” she said. “I’d had cancer myself but hadn’t figured out how to write about it. And when I heard that [screenwriter] Darlene Hunt had written it, I thought, ’Oh, somebody’s cracked that nut.’ So I wanted to see it, and when I did, I loved it.”