The Great American Entertainment Pivot of 2025

THE itsy bitsy PIVOT OF 2025 – by Kenn Viselman

It’s been a wild ride for the American Entertainment industry over the past few years. Every time it looks like things are settling back to normal there’s another catastrophe; Covid, The Strikes (WGA & SAG/AFTRA), issues with Film/Tax Incentives drying up and of course the wildfires that nearly whipped out Hollywood. Now the near closure of The Department of Education and the threat of 100% Tariffs on Feature Films is threatening the viability of the American Entertainment Industry.

So many of my peers are leaving the industry and others are in a state of either denial or desperation trying to stick it out… hoping for some form of miracle.

I started my grown-up career in a retail management training program (another story for another day) and the one thing that they taught us that really stuck with me all these years was that the skills of being a merchant were the same no matter what the product we were selling.

Whether it was that or my great intuitive nature or late-onset mid-life crisis, my team decided (convinced it was mid-live crisis) that we needed to broaden out our offerings to the marketplace.  Just specializing in Children’s content would no longer help us navigate the ever-changing landscape of Hollywood. We had to find a way to insulate ourselves from the uncertain state of the children’s entertainment industry… and Thank G-d we did. 

Over the last several days, the American Children’s entertainment industry has seen… The U.S. Department of Education notify CPB that it has terminated its 2020-2025 Ready To Learn (RTL) grant. CPB informed PBS and 44 public media stations in 28 states and the District of Columbia that receive RTL grants to stop work, pausing the program in rural and urban communities throughout the country. For more than three decades, RTL funded the development of high-quality educational television and digital media targeted at preschool and early elementary school children and their families, especially those from low-income communities. 

This decision was made despite the undisputed fact that Public Media offers a safe place for children to learn, protected from inappropriate content on commercial and social media – free of charge and commercial free.  Historically, grants from Ready To Learn have helped fund such well-known shows as “Sesame Street,” “Reading Rainbow, and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” just to name a few. In the most recent fiscal year, Ready To Learn content reached more than 1.8 billion video streams, 27.6 million digital game plays, 10.2 million television viewers, and 2 million mobile app downloads.

The impact on the global market has yet to be felt. What we do know is that the US produces a significant portion of the global children’s television market. While precise figures vary depending on the definition of “production” (domestic vs. co-productions), North America, primarily the United States, leads the global animation market.

The US is the largest marketplace for children’s television globally, with advertisers spending billions annually and even more on licensed products (175 billion dollars anticipated in 2025 globally). And with the threat of 100% tariffs in the atmosphere there’s a clear Tsunami headed directly at us as other territories will have no chose but to slap back with tariffs of their own.

So with all that said, about a year ago or so we started a dynamic shift in the way we presented The itsy bitsy Entertainment Company and increased awareness of Kenn Viselman presents.  While itsy bitsy Entertainment would still be our brand for children’s entertainment, we wanted to be recognized as “Global Entertainment Providers for the whole Family.”  So the first step was to say that we created content for the whole family by simply saying “Children’s AND Family” entertainment… so subtle that I’m not sure anyone even noticed.

And while we still joyously promote the juggernaut, MeteoHeroes, we realized that politics/world issues could also play a role in this series’ success. We decided to really focus on MeteoHeroes being more than a kids’ show… a movement. While governments might be uncertain about whether Climate Change is real or not, children around the world are VERY aware and extremely concerned about the state of the planet.  We decided to shift our focus and making the launch of our in-school podcasts and the bigger more comprehensive climate initiative our primary focus… no longer being reliant solely on the success of the broadcast (even though the series has proven to be a massive hit with children and their families across the globe).

Because we were well-known in the world of animation, we thought the first logical step in expanding our offerings was to imagine BLACKJACK, a brilliant and timely graphic novel series, as an adult animated series.  That meant we could approach a different buyer and expend our contact base… still providing the same service of producing high quality animation  simply shifting the target audience.  The interesting thing that this unpredictable market has forced us to do is be prepared to pivot. In the case of BLACKJACK, we are ready to talk about a live-action feature film, TV series or as an animated series depending who we are pitching and that “flex” shift has created a number of new opportunities for the brand.  It is important in this moment to have intention with your projects but not be so locked in that you let viable opportunities pass you by.

But that was just the beginning. This year we launched KVp Unscripted TV. It’s been quite a journey, because what I hadn’t anticipated is how hard it is to stand up when you have been pigeon-holed.  Apparently, the industry prefers that we stay in our lane and not expend into other worlds.  Our first attempt was a true failure as a result, but we refused to be deterred.  When we couldn’t get into the room with respected media partners (broadcasters or streamers), we recruited a number of powerful showrunners like John Platt (Undercover Boss & Big Brother), Zach Green (Alone, Survivor) and Matt Weber (Secret Millionaire, The Fashion Show, The Real Housewives of New York City).  With the help of these seasoned professionals, we are pitching 9 different unscripted reality series into the market.  We thought it was important to make a statement to the decision-makers that this wasn’t a one-off and that we planned to stay in this sandbox. 

We are also expanding into primetime television with an absolutely brilliant project, an anthology series called THE TIES THAT BIND. In order to gain credibility in this genre, I teamed up with well-known and equally respected Entertainment journalist, Michele Manelis who is part of the Golden Globes and has been interviewing celebrities for over 30 years.  The first installment is the relatively unknown and explosive true (crime) story of Olivia Newton John and her sister Rona.  We are working closely with Olivia’s nephew, Emerson Newton-John.  Michele wrote an article about this story in MINDFOOD Magazine in Australia and we are able to use that story as the basis for this Limited Series.  We follow this up with the second season of the TIES THAT BIND with the brothers from AC DC.

And while we still have a number of animated features that we have been developing for the past couple of years, we are also in pre-production on our first horror movie.  A super scary and smart horror/thriller about two friends who have been kidnapped.  We made sure if we were going to enter into this market that we had to find a way to be a disrupter.  We wrote a story that allows us to bring in big talent with a much more reasonable price tag something Hollywood tends to appreciate.

When I first met Anne Wood, we had a really long conversation about perception both the way we see ourselves and the way others see us. Anne used to define herself as “an old woman who creates tv shows for young British children.” By the end of that conversation I convinced Anne to think of herself as “a creator of global entertainment on and off the screen for the youngest of children and their families.’  Our next project together became TELETUBBIES.

For anyone reading this (who got to the end of this very long bit that most will think is nothing but self-promotion), my hope is that your take away is that the only thing limiting us is… US.  Our self-perception, our fear and our egos are the anchors that keep us from soaring to new heights.  Don’t be afraid to reach out for help or share the spotlight with others.  Recognize that all that is needed to enter a new market is access and credibility and then set out to find those things.

In difficult and uncertain situations, always have a back-pocket plan and be ready to pivot.