MotherLoad Wants Your Unique Video Pilot

Comedy Central has announced plans for a contest revolving around user-generated video. Dubbed "Comedy Central's Test Pilots" and scheduled to run between May 22nd and August 24th, the contest will seek to find "the next big broadband show," by inviting viewers to submit one- to five-minute pilots to comedycentral.com.

The winner will receive a development deal to produce a series, based on his or her pilot, on Comedy Central's recently launched broadband TV channel, MotherLoad. Comedy Central says that any format is eligible for the contest, including live action, animation, sketch-comedy or hidden-camera shows. The broadcaster is partnering with IFILM on the contest, taking advantage of the latter's user-generated content submission platform, which will be made accessible on Comedy Central's Web site.

Entries will be judged by Comedy Central staff and by visitors to the broadcaster's Web site: the Comedy Central team will choose three "staff picks" per week for four consecutive weeks, and those pilots will be streamed on the site. Site visitors will then rate each week's picks, and the highest-rated weekly pick will become a semi-finalist.

Once four semi-finalists have been chosen, site visitors will determine which of these videos will move on to the final competition: in addition to the site visitors' choice, three finalists will be chosen by a panel of Comedy Central executives.

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