9 Story’s Vince Commisso Set for TV Kids Summer Festival

Vince Commisso, co-founding partner, president and CEO of 9 Story Media Group, has joined the roster of the TV Kids Summer Festival as a keynote speaker.

The TV Kids Summer Festival, which is being held from June 7 to 10, will explore the challenges and opportunities facing the children’s content community today. The event, which is free to attend, will be streamed live and available on-demand on TVKidsFestival.com. (Missed our winter edition? Catch up on all the sessions here.)

9 Story Media Group is one of the industry’s leading creators, producers and distributors of top-quality content for young audiences around the world. With facilities in Toronto, New York, Dublin and Manchester, the 9 Story family of companies has produced over 2,800 episodes of best-in-class kids’ and family programming.

Commisso began his career in 1992 at Nelvana, where he rose through the ranks to become supervising producer, garnering one Emmy and two Gemini nominations. In 2002, he co-founded 9 Story Entertainment, an animation company that would utilize cutting-edge technologies to develop and produce compelling animated children’s content with international appeal. Since earning an Emmy Award for the company’s very first show, Peep and the Big Wide World, the 9 Story family of companies has gone on to earn countless other accolades, including fourteen Emmy Awards and two Oscar nominations.

During his keynote, Commisso will discuss 9 Story Media Group’s strategy for building brands, portraying a wide variety of characters so that all children can see themselves in the shows they watch, the value of curricular-driven/educational programming before and since the outbreak of the pandemic, Karma’s World and the collaboration with Ludacris, other new shows and upcoming projects, lessons learned from running 9 Story during the pandemic, and opportunities for growth in the next 12 to 24 months.

Commisso joins previously announced TV Kids Summer Festival speakers Sean Clarke, managing director of Aardman, and Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch, creators of Total Drama Island, who will be joined by CAKE’s Ed Galton for a special session looking at the success of the franchise.

Look for more announcements in the coming weeks about key speakers and panels taking place during the TV Kids Summer Festival. Registration will open shortly.