Finalists announced for first NBC Playground comedy pitch contest

NBC has announced the 10 finalists for the first edition of the network’s NBC Playground, an open competition to seek out new voices for primetime broadcast sitcoms.

Entries that advanced after submitting initial introduction videos, sitcom pitches and the required application are:

• Jeff Galante (Los Angeles)
• Tyler Hall (Brooklyn)
• Melissa Hunter (Los Angeles)
• Avery Lee & Bobby Richards (Chicago)
• Kassia Miller (New York)
• Daniel Poliner (Brooklyn)
• Jameel Saleem (Los Angeles)
• Adriano Valentini & Aaron Colom (Los Angeles)

NBC had announced the pitch contest last spring, and eventually had to remove the Comedy tag from its name due to a pre-existing training ground using the Comedy Playground brand name.

That said, now what happens?

The finalists picked above have won enough money to produce pilot presentations.

An “all-star Advisory Board” that includes several past and present NBC stars and producers will pick two winners by mid-2015 who’ll see their ideas become series. Or that’s the plan, anyhow.

The other finalists get to compete in the online playground, so to speak, for your votes, with the top vote-getter getting a webseries for his/her/their troubles.

Congrats and good luck!