Has indie television finally arrived?

A new sitcom called “The Jamz” and Terence Gray are about to find out.

For more than a decade, Mr. Gray has worked to establish an annual marketplace where major TV networks come to watch pilot episodes created by independent writers and producers — in other words, a small-screen version of the Sundance Film Festival. His event, called the New York Television Festival, aims to give TV aspirants a career lift while providing networks with access to fresh yet curated ideas.

But the television festival, which begins its 11th run on Monday, is still waiting for its “Sex, Lies and Videotape” moment — a breakout hit, the discovery of a singular talent, a public bidding war among potential distributors. (“Sex, Lies and Videotape” put both its director, Steven Soderbergh, and Sundance on the map in 1989.) “It takes time,” Mr. Gray said. “I see an explosion of independently produced limited series.”

“The Jamz” represents an effort to hurry that process along.

Three years ago, two young comedy writers and performers in Chicago, Jim Kozyra and Chris Petlak, raised a few thousand dollars online for webisodes about life at a dysfunctional radio station. They put their resulting work on Vimeo and got nowhere; one episode drew 70 views. So they made a pilot for a full-fledged television series called “The Jamz” and submitted it to last year’s New York Television Festival, where it turned heads.