For its 14th edition, the New York Television Festival has shifted from a fall festival to the summer.  Even with a shortened calendar, they have come up with a packed schedule and have extended from the usual 6 days to now, a 7 day event which runs July 14-20.

Keynotes for this year are President of BBC America Sarah Barnett, HBO Senior VP of Programming Kathleen McCaffrey, and the writing and producing duo of Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly, who are known for being head writers at SNL and are currently in production of Comedy Central's The Other Two.

NYTVF is a festival heavy on the writer and development of writers.  Panels and programmed events this year will reflect the desire by the festival to organize industry decision-makers with artists and create content with specific partners in mind.

Events for audiences include all the videos in the Independent Pilot Competition in addition to truTV showing off a couple of their new shows.  There is the original anthology series Bobcat Goldthwait's Misfits & Monsters and the comedy game show Paid Off with Michael Torpey.

Panels like Topic.com Senior VP of Editorial Anna Holmes, Filmmaker Nadia Hallgren, and Executive Producer of The Break with Michele Wolf Dan Powell discussing scripted and non-scripted content development for today's audience pepper the schedule.

The Writers Guild of America East will resurrect readings of one comedy and one drama of previously unproduced television pilots.  Writers Tom Ruprecht (The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore) and Yael Galena (Claws) and moderator Stuart Zicherman (Divorce, The Americans) will follow up the readings with a Q&A.

For a full list of events that will educate, motivate, and translate the world of television development, go to the website: www.nytvf.com.

Events range from free to passholder only to invite only.  Make sure to get your tickets early.  Even the free events require a ticket.