A s a child of Italian immigrants in Toronto, 9 Story Media Group president and CEO Vince Commisso says he didn’t speak English until he started going to school.

Class was tough but Saturday mornings were his salvation, watching programs including Star Trek with Canadian actor William Shatner, the Canadian kids animated series Rocket Robin Hood and Stan Lee’s original Spider-Man animated Canada/U.S. copro series featuring the voice of Toronto actor Paul Soles.

“I thought, ‘Oh, these things are possible here,'” Commisso recalls to Playback Daily. “It motivated me to think that my being born in Canada — because I still very much identified with my parents’ culture — really afforded an opportunity to make things that would go around the world.”

As the story goes — or, as the 9 Story goes, rather — Commisso turned those childhood thoughts into reality as co-founder of the Toronto-based kids and family prodco giant. His achievements have earned him a Board of Director’s Tribute Award at this week’s Canadian Screen Awards and have him feeling humbled, celebratory and reflective.

“I haven’t done it alone, I want to be really clear about that, but I’ve led the creation of an organization that’s allowed hundreds of people to come together to create many things that have the chance to make a difference in children’s lives,” says Commisso. “That’s what’s motivated me.”

Commisso started his career in 1992 at Nelvana, where he became supervising producer and earned an Emmy and two Gemini nominations. He co-founded 9 Story Entertainment in 2002 and helped it grow into the current 9 Story Media Group, with locations in Dublin, Toronto, Bali, and New York.

One of the biggest changes he’s seen during his career: “The storytelling for kids has become something that’s more on their level than it is talking down to them,” says Commisso, noting “the kids audience is the most demanding audience out there.”

Commisso has also observed a proliferation of platforms now delivering icon-driven kids content. It only takes a child 0.7 seconds to decide if they’re going to click on an icon or not, “so the icon has to compel,” he says.

Programming, meanwhile, has to deliver “almost immediately,” connect with a kid’s imagination and serve as both a mirror and a window for them. The mirror is a reflection of what they see in their everyday lives while the window offers “something aspirational.” These days, the mirror and window are more inclusive than ever, representing “more holistic, inclusive kids environments.”

Last year, 9 Story Media Group hired a chief inclusion officer, Farrell Hall. Commisso says Hall’s role is shaping into something much larger than originally imagined, noting he’s “involved in every aspect” of their operations.

The company’s popular series include Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood, Blue’s Clues & You! and The Magic School Bus: Rides Again. To understand what kids want, 9 Story Media Group uses a research team in New York.

“We go back to the constituents, our audience, the kids, and we ask them how they feel before we move forward,” says Commisso. “We do this inside schools, we do this with focus groups where parents are part of it. And we welcome any and all viewers, because we’re trying to accomplish something that creates a positive change and we need as much help as we can get.”

The award-winning 9 Story group of companies includes animation studio Brown Bag Films; international distribution arm 9 Story Distribution International; and in-house consumer products division 9 Story Brands.

The company’s future lies in authentically creating characters that will engage current and future generations, and in going “everywhere kids are,” says Commisso.

While inflation is increasing costs and budgets across the entire screen sector, Commisso feels the kids genre has more insulation and resilience.

“Kids content has not increased to the same level as a non-kids content in terms of pricing,” he says. “Since we started the business to now, budgets have quadrupled on average… But even at that, we can produce our most expensive series, 20-hour episodes for two episodes of [Netflix series] Lost in Space.”

Kids content has the added advantage of an audience that tends to be “serial bingers” and, in many cases, is the reason a household subscribes to a service, he notes.

“This effect that people that grew up with it still watch it, and it’s not transient, because it has nostalgic value from when you were a child. So it has greater value at lower cost.”