The just-concluded KidScreen Summit in New York has a great location, and despite the downturn, made for a strong confab.

The KidScreen Summit in New York City is now a major market. Rivaling MIPTV, KidScreen is a significant event to move one's projects forward. This year arriving just seven weeks before MIPTV, the hardcore group of kids' business professionals descended upon the Hilton New York in Midtown for meetings, panels and schmoozing.

I would have said a year ago that there were three must-attend kids programming markets -- KidScreen, MIPTV and MIPCOM. However, as travel budgets get cut, it seems this year a lot of people are choosing between KidScreen and MIPTV, attending one or the other. If this trend continues, I can see KidScreen having an edge on MIPTV. It is amazing the amount of people that are sitting out MIPTV this year, waiting for MIPCOM. Why travel to Cannes and float around the massive Palais, where programming of all genres is on sale, when one can visit the Big Apple and concentrate on the select companies that make our business go around, they say?

Plus, the New York location is well suited -- easy for the all-important Canadians, a short flight for Europeans and a similar but different long haul for Asia and Australia. That being said, this year buyers were sparser at KidScreen, but everyone was still busy and talking -- talking about how to do business in this new economy and without using the old models. Attendance also seemed more focused -- and no one minded! KidScreen's power used to be that only folks "in the know" would appear and this year was a harkening back to that. Everyone enjoyed the fact that there was plenty of seating and, that "crazy guy with the bug project" wasn't there. ("Does he have to hum the theme song the entire time his wife is pitching?")

While at MIPCOM, the first spasms of how bad this downturn is were just beginning to reveal themselves, by now we are all well aware of the new reality we are facing. It seems almost fitting that the setting was New York, probably one of the most impacted U.S. cities. The city felt like L.A. did during the WGA writers strike; a little quieter, a little slower, a little emptier.

For me, I have seen a marked difference since MIPCOM. Prior to MIPCOM, there had always been a number of jobs pending. However, in the month after MIPCOM, most of these opportunities disappeared. Either the companies are now not approving new headcount, are in serious financial trouble with rumors of bankruptcy or have lost their angel backers. From new start-ups to major media conglomerates the story is the same: "Hiring is on hold." However, I have seen interest in my consulting services triple. Where companies cannot afford to hire someone full-time, they are now hiring a consultant. Small, simple jobs are also being outsourced. I was recently hired to help with a company's one sheets. The task used to be handled by their marketing department, but when a department of five is now down to two, some jobs just can't be handled internally anymore. Since my life has changed so markedly in the past few months, I wondered how others were faring and what they were doing to ensure their success through these difficult times.

Here is what they had to say...

The market is slow, but shows like The League of Super Evil from smaller entities are still selling. © Nerd Corps Ent.

Ken Faier, President, Nerd Corps Ent.

Certainly these are challenging economic times. We want to believe that it is all part of a cycle and will come back. We want to subscribe to the old adage of buy low, sell high, and invest during the downturn to be stronger when the economy turns around. It takes courage and resolve and a whole bunch of other buzzwords to actually follow through.

The challenge this time around is that in addition to the downturn, TV and traditional media are evolving and transforming (some would say dissolving) before our very eyes. We are truly in the midst of some of the most important changes to media, and the ways in which it is consumed, the world has ever seen. TV has only been around for 60 or so years. Nothing is forever. Luckily (kind of), the animation and kids business has been forced to redefine itself over and over again for the last 15 years. The days of the U.S. broadcasters paying 100% of the budget of a show and the producer being able to own 100% of the show are long gone. In the process we have grown up and been forced into the role of hyper-entrepreneurs -- starting over every time we get a new show off the ground, each time a miracle in itself.

So how has it changed our approach? Well for one, it reminds us that the most important thing as an independent producer is to make sure that you invest in the development of IP, which means great, great shows. It has always been the only leverage we have. We don't have deep cash resources, and we don't have executive teams that cover every aspect of building a children's brand globally. What we do have is resourcefulness, creativity and the drive to survive.

It is amazing what can be done when you have to perform or its game over. When it's like that every day, you develop a keen survival instinct and you focus your energies into the areas that make the most impact. So from our point of view, we are being very careful where we spend our investment dollars and ensuring that our properties will attract the right partners who can help make things happen.