Attention screenwriters, The New York Television Festival (NYTVF) and ION Television recently announced a new screenplay writing competition called Act I: The ION Television Movie Contest. The competition is open now and runs through November 30th. Writers must submit a movie treatment (5-10 pages) and the first act of their screenplay (20-40 pages). The screenplay will ideally be in the genre of a “drama procedural,” i.e. cop/crime driven script. The winner receives a $40,000 development deal with ION. There aren’t many more details available online; what I did find was on the NYTVF website, not on the ION site. NYTVF promises more details soon.

ION is on a quest to fill out its original programming. Currently, they have an origianl series called Durham County, which some sleuthing online revealed is a show about… uh… secrets in Durham County.  Its tag line is “No secret stays buried forever.” The network rounds out most of its programming with shows from CBS, including The Ghost Whisperer, Criminal Minds and NCIS. It also airs the current incarnation of the game show Family Feud (hosted by John O’Hurley – a.k.a. J. Peterman from Seinfeld!) and M*A*S*H. So, kind of whatever it can make a deal for, plus feature films. Still, the network claims to reachover 96 million U.S. television households and is actively seeking original programming, so the deal has potential for a writer with a strong idea.

NYTVF is an independent television festival held each year in September, that “provides a platform to elevate the work of artists creating for the small screen.” The festival sponsors an Independent Pilot Competition as well.

Tags: drama procedural competition, ION Television, New York TV Festival, screenplay competition, television development deal, writing for television

This post was written by Rebecca Collins, Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Screenwriting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.