The digital content arena has turned into TV’s equivalent of the Wild West, a fresh frontier for networks seeking to capitalize and find new talent. With this summer’s NBC Playground initiative, NBC has joined the fray in hopes to discover the “next ground-breaking comedy idea.”

To do so, NBC opened the floodgates by accepting video submissions from young and emerging writers pitching their idea for a comedy series.

Some 2,100+ entrants later, NBC execs took a look at the submissions, and their top picks were given funding for a media presentation based on their original pitch. These favorites went to NBC’s Advisory Board, a collection of high-profile stars and comedy talent including Amy Poehler, Adam McKay, Mindy Kaling and Jason Bateman. On August 13, the board chose two of the projects, Sunset PPL and Imaginary Friend, as on-air winners, with the promise of pilots coming to NBC’s airwaves.

“NBC is excited to bring these innovative new works from such fresh comedic talents to the television audience,” said NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke, in a statement. “The first cycle was a tremendous success and the originality of the ideas and diversity of the new voices that were elicited through this initiative were truly inspiring. We could not have succeeded in finding such an incredible group of aspiring writers had we not had the help of an awesome Advisory Board—a real A-list group of comedy producers, writers and performers who were as eager as we were to find the next comedy superstars.”

The remaining five finalists (Bobby & Izo, The Bar Mitzvah Club, Broker, Stunted and Wolfgirl) have been put to a vote, with one digital winner set to be crowned Thursday, September 3, and awarded the opportunity to produce their web series for NBC’s online portal.

Viewers are able to vote up to 10 times per day on Facebook or through e-mail. The competition has been waged through social media circles (@ComedyNBC), with celebrities getting in on the #NBCPlayground promotion.

The contest, like Amazon’s crowd sourced pilot seasons, opens up the decision making for NBC’s programming to the public, a continuing trend that has given more power to the viewer. Given NBC Playground’s success, it would be no surprise to see another cycle next year, as networks continue to expand their digital spaces to sate the never-ending hunger for original content.

To watch and vote for your favorite entrant in the first NBC Playground, check out the website here.

Tags:


  Save as PDF