TV Kids Festival 2025 Recap
UDIEEN YO MOV AUDIEN Y
CONTENTS
THE DECISION-MAKERS The fifth edition of the TV Kids Festival kicked off with our signature session on acquisition and programming strategies, this time delivering intel from ITV’s Darren Nartey, Nickelodeon’s Lynsey O’Callaghan and Amazon Kids+’s Monica Sharma.
AHEAD OF THE CURVE WITH AMPERE Olivia Deane, research manager at Ampere Analysis, outlined the challenges and opportunities facing kids’ IP owners with a deep dive into commissioning trends.
MATTEL’S JOSH SILVERMAN Josh Silverman, executive VP and chief franchise officer at Mattel, discussed the toy giant’s treasure trove of iconic brands and shared the latest developments at Mattel Television Studios.
THE ENGAGEMENT GAME Kids’ media expert Emily Horgan led this conversation on engagement and discovery with pocket.watch’s Beck Canote and Kedoo Entertainment’s Olivier Bernard.
TV KIDS
PIONEER AWARD: SUPER RTL’S DOMINIQUE NEUDECKER Dominique
Neudecker, VP of kids and family at Super RTL’s TOGGO, discussed her editorial strategy at the German kids’ network before receiving the TV Kids Pioneer Award in recognition of her contributions to the industry.
FEELING BOOKISH ZDF Studios’ Oliver Grundel, Dandelooo’s Emmanuèle Pétry, Hidden Pigeon Company’s Kristofer Updike and Lion Forge Entertainment’s Jeremy Colfer shared insights on adapting book IP.
9 STORY MEDIA GROUP’S VINCE COMMISSO Vince Commisso, president and CEO of 9 Story Media Group, discussed the way forward for the company now that it has closed its transformative deal with Scholastic.
GAME TIME Dubit’s David Kleeman moderated this session on the importance of gaming extensions with Wind Sun Sky Entertainment’s Catherine Winder and DeAPlaneta Entertainment’s Jimena Tormo.
BOAT ROCKER’S JON RUTHERFORD Jon Rutherford, president of global rights, franchise and content strategy at Boat Rocker Studios, outlined the company’s approach to leveraging new technologies and platforms.
SHAW ROCKET FUND’S AGNES AUGUSTIN As the president and CEO of the Shaw Rocket Fund, Agnes Augustin offered up insights on trends reshaping the Canadian kids’ content sector.
TOON INNOVATION From the game-changing developments presented by Unreal Engine to the impacts of AI, Composition Media’s Carl Reed and Cheeky Little Media’s Patrick Egerton shared their thoughts on animation innovation.
CARL THE COLLECTOR’S ZACHARIAH OHORA Carl the Collector, created by illustrator Zachariah OHora, is the first series for PBS KIDS in the U.S. that is centered on a neurodiverse character.
Ricardo Seguin Guise
Publisher
Mansha Daswani
Editor-in-Chief
Kristin Brzoznowski Executive Editor
Jamie Stalcup Senior Associate Editor
David Diehl Production & Design Director
Simon Weaver Online Director
Dana Mattison Sales & Marketing Director
Genovick Acevedo Sales & Marketing Manager
Ute Schwemmer Bookkeeper
Ricardo Seguin Guise President
Anna Carugati Executive VP
Mansha Daswani
Associate Publisher
Kristin Brzoznowski VP, Content Strategy TV Kids
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The TV KIDS SUMMER FESTIVAL is a four-day must-attend virtual event taking place a week prior to Annecy/Mifa.
Set to be held from June 3 to 6, 2025, the fifth edition of the TV KIDS SUMMER FESTIVAL will feature keynotes and panels with leading executives and creatives discussing the major trends in the children’s programming business. It will be streamed live and available on-demand for two months on TVKidsSummerFestival.com. For sponsorship opportunities, please contact Ricardo Guise at rguise@worldscreen.com, Dana Mattison at dmattison@worldscreen.com or Genovick Acevedo at gacevedo@worldscreen.com.
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THE DECISIONMAKERS
The fifth edition of the TV Kids Festival kicked off with our signature session on acquisition and programming strategies, this time delivering intel from ITV’s Darren Nartey, Nickelodeon’s Lynsey O’Callaghan and Amazon Kids+’s Monica Sharma.
The difficulty that we’re all having to grapple with in our industry is the migration of kids from linear to YouTube, TikTok and a lot of those social media platforms. That was part of the reason why CITV closed. With ITVX, we found an opportunity to widen out what we were doing.”
—Darren Nartey
Older kids are transitioning to other platforms at a younger age, so we’re looking for how to find content that keeps [them] engaged. For preschoolers, we have a healthy mix of entertainment and edutainment, shows that nurture curiosity and learning . ” —Monica Sharma
We are open to flexibility and using strategies like holdbacks and windows where we can in certain territories to get things made. In certain territories, we are looking for wider pay and free rights. Paramount+ has added a level of looking for broader rights.” —Lynsey
O’Callaghan
AHEAD CURVE AMPERE OF THE WITH
Olivia Deane, research manager at Ampere Analysis, outlined the challenges and opportunities facing kids’ IP owners with a deep dive into commissioning trends.
Children are not a major motivating factor for consumers when deciding to subscribe to a service. However, they still play an important role in subscriber behavior. Households with children are not only more likely to have more viewing devices, but they also make up a large proportion of Netflix viewing activity. While children’s content isn’t enticing people to sign up, it is stopping them from leaving. While streamers are limiting their budget for new, original and exclusive children’s content, they are acquiring large volumes of existing children’s content. While Amazon, Netflix and Disney all commissioned a much lower volume of children’s content, the number of acquired children’s titles on their platforms all grew. Not unlike the early days of streaming, where acquisition was a focus over commissioning, the big studio names are at the forefront of content sales. This is where we will start to see revenue flowing back into the marketplace for children’s content. Most of the content is still sourced from independent producers.”
Mattel’s JOSH SILVERMAN
Josh Silverman, executive VP and chief franchise officer at Mattel, discussed the toy giant’s treasure trove of iconic brands and shared the latest developments at Mattel Television Studios.
We have our best-in-class global distribution partners across streaming and linear. We have an incredible team that focuses on YouTube and social content. Our goal is to create great content and make sure that we place it on platforms where people can experience it. We believe in theatrical, streaming, short-form and social content. G reat content is what we endeavor to develop. The distribution is robust, and it falls into that multiplatform approach…. Our content has to connect to our fans. We try to be thoughtful and strategic about how we develop and ultimately propel our franchise flywheel. We want to ensure that our shows deliver the creative and the heart that we put into them. In some cases, we want to superserve our superfans, so we develop something that connects to them. Sometimes, we want to create a whole new audience. We don’t reverse engineer content to sell products and toys. We create great content [with the] goal to engage our fans and extend those narratives.”
THE ENGAGEMENT GAME
Kids’ media expert Emily Horgan led this conversation on engagement and discovery with pocket.watch’s Beck Canote and Kedoo Entertainment’s Olivier Bernard.
[On Netflix], YouTube IP preschool dominates, and YouTube IP within preschool has a really strong footprint.” —Emily Horgan
Hulu, Disney+ and Peacock are such important places to be. That badge of quality gets you more in a mindset of marketing opportunities. You can’t 360 on your own. That stamp of authenticity and quality on YouTube content does still come at times from these traditional broadcasters and bigger names.” —Beck Canote
Each platform has its own silo. They have different audiences; therefore, you need to analyze the data of each platform and make sure that you’re actually answering for that audience. We don’t look at it in a global way. We’re focusing on each platform and the audience within the platform. You need to have an overview of what the market does and where it goes. On the weekly, daily and quarterly analysis, you need to understand what’s happening on each platform. ” —Olivier Bernard
TV Kids Pioneer Award: Super RTL’s DOMINIQUE NEUDECKER
Dominique Neudecker, VP of kids and family at Super RTL’s TOGGO, discussed her editorial strategy at the German kids’ network before receiving the TV Kids Pioneer Award in recognition of her contributions to the industry.
Next to linear TV, we invested heavily in building a proper kids’ web business to distribute our content via our digital platforms and apps, as well as the major third-party platforms. We launched a radio channel for kids and families. We travel through various German cities with our TOGGO Tour. We have a footprint in retail through our strong consumer-product business. Our motto is: Wherever the kids go, we are there with the TOGGO brand, being the number one go-to destination. We are the only German player to serve such a broad range of platforms. In the TV sector, we have been the market leader among kids aged 3 to 13 for many years, including in 2024, even though the German market is highly competitive with KiKA and competitors like Disney and Nickelodeon. In the digital space, we’ve also seen strong growth. TOGGO now represents RTL Deutschland’s unified children’s offering. It’s instantly recognizable. When parents see us, they immediately know it’s a safe digital space for their kids.”
FEELING BOOKISH
ZDF Studios’ Oliver Grundel, Dandelooo’s Emmanuèle Pétry, Hidden
Pigeon Company’s Kristofer Updike and Lion Forge Entertainment’s Jeremy Colfer shared insights on adapting book IP.
It all starts with a willingness to understand what made the original beloved and ensuring that the essence, themes and spirit of the source material are carefully preserved in the adaptation. Then you can start to make adjustments and update it.” —Oliver
Grundel
When you bring a book to broadcasters, they know immediately what you’re talking about. You can gain two or three years because you go straight into development. It’s valuable timing-wise.”
—Emmanuèle Pétry
We’re close to the creators. When you speak to them, you realize they’re limited by page count, by panels per page, all of that. There is a wealth of story and information that never made it onto the page.”
—Jeremy Colfer
I think we have another year or so of this kind of content being very much in demand. 2025 is a year of IP and brands.”—Kristofer Updike
9 Story Media Group’s VINCE COMMISSO
Vince Commisso, president and CEO of 9 Story Media Group, discussed the way forward for the company now that it has closed its transformative deal with Scholastic.
We see this broadly as a marriage between IP and capabilities. Scholastic Entertainment has great literarybased IP and development capabilities to turn that IP into TV and feature film content. 9 Story has tremendous capabilities in production and development, which are now combined under Scholastic Entertainment, and merchandising and licensing that we can bring to bear to control the IP more directly within the Scholastic family. We can extend high-quality IP into books, television, movies and YouTube and support that underlying IP and the relevant extensions. Breaking through takes work and distribution capacity—and no one has better distribution capacity for literature for kids than Scholastic. If we support that with YouTube and with the development of a TV show, you can build a robust content IP that the audience becomes aware of quickly. Once you distribute on those platforms, you can engage more fully, create more content and then extend in terms of your broader IP strategy.”
GAME TIME
Dubit’s David Kleeman moderated this session on the importance of gaming extensions with Wind Sun Sky Entertainment’s Catherine Winder and DeAPlaneta Entertainment’s Jimena Tormo.
We survey seven countries, and in virtually all of them, between a fifth and a quarter of kids’ time is spent on digital activities. Once, linear led the way and games were an ancillary way to engage. Now, a lot of IPs launch game-first, and there are a lot of models for show-to-game and game-to-show. Most children’s media companies see themselves as multiplatform franchise-builders. They’re all working to ensure that their content is aligned with young people and how they watch, engage and play.”
—David Kleeman
The gamification of content is something that fans, players and IP lovers are looking for. I think more games are going to become story worlds and more story worlds are going to become gamified. The merging of these gaming platforms and narrative storytelling is going to continue to deepen.” —Catherine Winder
Gaming spaces have become social spaces. Kids are not only playing but also hanging out, going to concerts and having more social experiences than ever.” —Jimena Tormo
Boat Rocke r ’s
JON RUTHERFORD
Jon Rutherford, president of global rights, franchise and content strategy at Boat Rocker Studios, outlined the company’s approach to leveraging new technologies and platforms.
We have a well-diversified portfolio. Within our kids’ and family slate, we do original IP and we’ve had long-running series that continue to do well for us, global sales across a vast catalog and service animation work. We’re looking at where there’s opportunity and not just following traditional ways of doing business…. We’ve always had a philosophy to look at different ways to greenlight production. Our development comes in so many different shapes and sizes from internal creatives and external partners in different countries. That allows us to think differently in terms of the opportunities that exist. We play a role in the financing of so many of the productions. Being rooted in Canada, we’ve always had to put financing together from multiple sources. It’s not just how we develop a great piece of property, but how we get it into production and to an audience.”
Shaw Rocket Fund’s AGNES AUGUSTIN
As the president and CEO of the Shaw Rocket Fund, Agnes Augustin off ered up insights on trends reshaping the Canadian kids’ content sector.
There was a commitment to children’s television when everyone decided children needed access to meaningful and important content for who they are as people and who they will be in the world. That got lost over the years. We had a robust children’s industry when the business made sense. When the business didn’t make sense, the children’s genre was not prioritized. We need to ensure that there’s a priority for children and that we take a look at the world they’re in today. We’re recommending that 20 percent of all spending on Canadian programming is for children’s content, regardless of platform. That is the number one answer. All the other things come under that. While kids are driving the content and generating it, they still need good narratives and direction. We know that kids need to be able to be given content to help shape their lives. It’s a commitment to children and then making sure that we have the financial resources to create great, strong, meaningful content.”
TOON INNOVATION
From the game-changing developments presented by Unreal Engine to the impacts of AI, Composition Media’s Carl Reed and Cheeky Little Media’s Patrick Egerton shared their thoughts on animation innovation.
We have three principles that we follow for integrating any tool, especially AI. Accelerated—if it’s not making us faster, why not just do it the old-fashioned way. Adaptable—we have to be in control. Artist- driven—we need to have these tools in the hands of our artists in order to not start from scratch. That’s how we decide which tools we use. [The tools are] speeding things up remarkably and affecting what an independent studio can do from a cost/time perspective.”
—Carl Reed
We are still taking a similar amount of time to make a show in Unreal as we were using a traditional pipeline. We’re not making shows at half the price. However, we are making shows at a higher level of production quality in the same time. You could argue it is probably more efficient and cheaper, but we’re still taking the same amount of time to turn a show out.”
—Patrick Egerton
Carl the Collecto r ’ s ZACHARIAH OHORA
Carl the Collector, created by illustrator Zachariah OHora, is the first series for PBS KIDS in the U.S. that is centered on a neurodiverse character.
[We set out to find] as many people on the spectrum and autistic people that we could put in all parts of the production, including the writers’ room. Why try to tell someone else’s story? We always encourage people to pull from their own childhood and their own experiences and come up with story premises, and then we build them out from there. If the character is autistic, the actor is also autistic. Kai [Barham] and Maddy [McIlwain], who voice Carl and Lotta, are both autistic. They were not professional voice actors before; they are now. It was important to get as many neurodiverse voices in all levels of the production. Our director, Lisa Whittick, has a grown son who is autistic. We have autistic people on the production, and we also have people who have close family members who are autistic or neurodiverse. That was a really important thing that we knew from the beginning that we needed to do.”
