Editing Sesame Workshop (section)

== Funding sources ==
After ''Sesame Street''{{'}}s initial success, the CTW began to think about its survival beyond the development and first season of the show, since its funding sources were composed of organizations and institutions that tended to start projects, not sustain them.<ref name="davis-203">Davis, p. 203</ref> Although the organization was what Cooney termed "the darling of the federal government for a brief period of two or three years",<ref>Davis, p. 218</ref> its first ten years of existence was marked by conflicts between the two; in 1978, the [[US Department of Education]] refused to deliver a $2 million check until the last day of the CTW's fiscal year.<ref>O'Dell, p. 73</ref> According to Davis, the federal government was opposed to funding public television, but the Workshop used Cooney's prestige and fame, and the fact that there would be "great public outcry"<ref name="wershba-6" /> if the series was de-funded, to withstand the government's attacks on PBS. Eventually, the CTW got its own line item in the federal budget.<ref>Davis, pp. 218–219</ref>  By 2019, the U.S. government donated about four percent of the Workshop's budget, or less than $5 million a year.<ref name="guthrie2"/>

[[File:Jim Henson (1989) headshot.jpg|left|thumb|upright|alt=A tall, thin man in his early fifties, with salty-gray hair and a full beard, and wearing a tuxedo.|[[Jim Henson]], creator of [[the Muppets]], in 1989]]

For the first time, a public broadcasting series had the potential to earn a great deal of money.  Immediately after its premiere, ''Sesame Street ''gained attention from marketers,<ref name="davis-203" /> so the Workshop explored sources such as licensing arrangements, publishing, and international sales, and became, as Cooney envisioned, a "multiple media institution".<ref name="cherow-197">Cherow-O'Leary in Fisch & Truglio, p. 197</ref> Licensing became the foundation of, as writer Louise Gikow stated, the Sesame Workshop endowment,<ref name="gikow-268">Gikow, p. 268</ref> which had the potential to fund the organization and future productions and projects.<ref name="davis-205" /> Muppet creator [[Jim Henson]] owned the trademarks to the [[List of Sesame Street Muppets|Muppet characters]]: he was reluctant to market them at first, but agreed when the CTW promised that the profits from toys, books, and other products were to be used exclusively to fund the CTW. The producers demanded complete control of all products and product decisions throughout its history; any product line associated with the series had to be educational, inexpensive, and not advertised during broadcastings of ''Sesame Street''.<ref>Davis, pp. 203–205</ref> As Davis reported, "Cooney stressed restraint, prudence, and caution" in their marketing and licensing efforts.<ref>Davis, p. 204</ref> In the early 1970s, the CTW negotiated with [[Random House]] to establish and manage a non-broadcast materials division. Random House and the CTW named [[Christopher Cerf (musician and television producer)|Christopher Cerf]] to assist the CTW in publishing books and other materials that emphasized the series' curriculum.<ref name="davis-205">Davis, p. 205</ref>  By 2019, the Sesame Workshop had over 500 licensing agreements, and its total revenue in 2018 was $35 million.  A million children play with ''Sesame Street''-themed toys per day.<ref name="wallace"/><ref name="guthrie"/>

Soon after the premiere of ''Sesame Street'', producers, educators, and officials of other nations began requesting that a version of the series be broadcast in their countries. [[CBS]] executive [[Michael Dann]] was required to quit his job at that network due to a change of corporate policy preceding the so-called "[[rural purge]]"; upon his ouster, he became vice-president of the CTW and Cooney's assistant.{{refn|group=note|Dann called the creation of the CTW "one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of the mass media".<ref>Lesser, p. 36</ref>}} Dann then began developing foreign versions of ''Sesame Street''<ref name="cole-147"/> by arranging what were eventually termed [[International co-productions of Sesame Street|co-productions]], or independent programs with their own sets, characters, and curriculum goals. By 2009, ''Sesame Street'' had expanded into 140 countries;<ref>Gikow, p. 11</ref> ''[[The New York Times]]'' reported in 2005 that income from the CTW's international co-productions of the series was $96 million.<ref>Carvajal, Doreen (12 December 2005). [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/business/media/12sesame.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 "Sesame Street Goes Global: Let's All Count the Revenue".] ''The New York Times.'' Retrieved 12 May 2014</ref> By 2008, the ''Sesame Street'' Muppets accounted for between $15 million and $17 million per year in licensing and merchandising fees, divided between the Workshop and [[Henson Associates]].<ref>Davis, p. 5</ref>{{refn|As of 2019, ''Sesame Street'' has produced 200 home videos and 180 albums.<ref name="wallace"/>|group=note}}  The Workshop began pursuing funding from corporate sponsors in 1998; consumer advocate [[Ralph Nader]] urged parents to protest the move by boycotting the show.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Frankel |first1=Daniel |title=Nader Says "Sesame Street" Sells Out |url=https://www.eonline.com/news/37115/nader-says-sesame-street-sells-out |access-date=3 April 2019 |work=ENews |publisher=E! Entertainment Television |date=7 October 1998 |archive-date=4 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190404143449/https://www.eonline.com/news/37115/nader-says-sesame-street-sells-out |url-status=live }}</ref>  In 2018 the Workshop made a deal with [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] to develop original content including puppet series for Apple's streaming service.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shapiro |first1=Ariel |title=Apple makes a big push into kids' content with creators of Sesame Street |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/apple-signs-multi-series-order-with-sesame-workshop.html |access-date=12 April 2019 |work=CNBC.com |date=20 June 2018 |archive-date=12 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412154814/https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/apple-signs-multi-series-order-with-sesame-workshop.html |url-status=live }}</ref>  In 2019, ''Parade Magazine'' reported that the organization had received two $100 million grants from the [[MacArthur Foundation]] and from the [[LEGO Foundation]]; the funds were used to undertake "the largest early childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response to help refugee children and families".<ref name="wallace"/>

=== Publishing ===
In 1970, the CTW established a department managing the development of "nonbroadcast" materials based upon ''Sesame Street''. The Workshop decided that all materials its licensing program created would "underscore and amplify"<ref name="davis-205" /> the series' curriculum. Coloring books, for example, were prohibited because the Workshop felt they would restrict children's imaginations.<ref name="gikow-268" /> CTW published ''Sesame Street Magazine'' in 1970, which incorporated the show's curriculum goals in a magazine format.<ref>Cherow-O'Leary in Fisch & Truglio, p. 198</ref> As with the series, research was performed for the magazine, initially by CTW's research department for a year and a half, and then by the Magazine Research Group in 1975.<ref name="cherow-197" />

Working with [[Random House]] editor Jason Epstein, the CTW hired Christopher Cerf to manage ''Sesame Street''{{'}}s book publishing program.<ref name="gikow-268" /><ref name="davis-205" /> During the division's first year, Cerf earned $900,000 for the CTW. He quit to become more involved with writing and composing music for the series,<ref>Davis, p. 206</ref> and was replaced eventually by Bill Whaley. Ann Kearns, vice president of licensing for the CTW in 2000, stated that Whaley was responsible for expanding the licensing to other products, and for creating a licensing model used by other children's series.<ref name="gikow-268" /> As of 2019, the Workshop had published over 6,500 book titles.<ref name="guthrie"/> and as researcher Renee Cherow-O'Leary stated in 2001, "the print materials produced by CTW have been an enduring part of the legacy of Sesame Street".<ref name="cherow-197" /> In one of these books, for example, the death of the ''Sesame Street'' character [[Mr. Hooper]] was featured in a book entitled ''I'll Miss You, Mr. Hooper'', published soon after the series featured it in 1983.<ref>Cherow-O'Leary in Fisch & Truglio, p. 210</ref>  In 2019, ''Parade Magazine'' reported that 20 million copies of ''[[The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover|The Monster at the End of the Book]]'' and ''Another Monster at the End of this Book'' had been sold, making them the top two best-selling e-books sold.<ref name="wallace"/>  Its [[YouTube]] channel had almost 5 million subscribers.<ref name="guthrie"/>

=== Music ===
{{Main|Music of Sesame Street}}

According to director Jon Stone, the music of ''Sesame Street'' was unlike any other children's program on television.<ref>Gikow, p. 220</ref> For the first time, the show's songs fulfilled a specific purpose and was related to its curriculum.<ref>Gikow, p. 227</ref> Cooney observed in her initial report that children had an "affinity for commercial jingles",<ref>Palmer & Fisch in Fisch & Truglio, p. 17</ref> so many of the show's songs were like television advertisements.

To attract the best composers and lyricists, and to encourage them to compose more music for the series, the CTW allowed songwriters to retain the rights to the songs they wrote. For the first time in children's television, the writers earned lucrative profits, which as Davis reported, "helped the show sustain the level of public interest in the show".<ref name="davis-256">Davis, p. 256</ref> Scriptwriters often wrote their own lyrics to accompany their scripts.<ref name="davis-256"/> Songwriters of note were [[Joe Raposo]], [[Jeff Moss]], [[Christopher Cerf (producer)|Christopher Cerf]], [[Tony Geiss]], and [[Norman Stiles]]. Many of the songs written for ''Sesame Street'' have become what writer David Borgenicht termed "timeless classics".<ref>Borgenicht, David (1998). ''Sesame Street Unpaved.'' New York: Hyperion Publishing. p. 145. {{ISBN|0-7868-6460-5}}</ref> These songs included "[[Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?]]", "[[I Love Trash]]", "[[Rubber Duckie]]", "[[Bein' Green]]", and "[[Sing (Sesame Street song)|Sing]]". Many ''Sesame Street'' songs were recorded by well-known artists such as [[Barbra Streisand]], [[Lena Horne]], [[Dizzy Gillespie]], [[Paul Simon]], and [[José Feliciano|Jose Feliciano]].<ref name="Gikow 221">Gikow, p. 221</ref>  By 2019, there were 180 albums of ''Sesame Street'' music produced.<ref name="guthrie">{{cite news |last1=Guthrie |first1=Marisa |title=50 Years of Sunny Days on 'Sesame Street': Behind the Scenes of TV's Most Influential Show Ever |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/sesame-street-turns-50-how-a-childrens-show-revolutionized-television-1183031 |access-date=16 April 2019 |work=The Hollywood Reporter |date=6 February 2019 |archive-date=24 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224104234/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/sesame-street-turns-50-how-a-childrens-show-revolutionized-television-1183031 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The show's first album, ''Sesame Street Book & Record'', recorded in 1970, was a major success and won a Grammy Award.<ref>Gikow, p. 270</ref>   ''Parade Magazine'' reported in 2019 that the show's music had been honored with 11 children's [[Grammy Award|Grammys]].<ref name="wallace">{{cite news |last1=Wallace |first1=Debra |title=Big Bird Has 4,000 Feathers: 21 Fun Facts About Sesame Street That Will Blow Your Mind |url=https://parade.com/840056/debrawallace/big-bird-has-4000-feathers-21-things-about-sesame-street-that-will-blow-your-mind/ |access-date=11 April 2019 |work=Parade |date=6 February 2019 |archive-date=5 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210405031949/https://parade.com/840056/debrawallace/big-bird-has-4000-feathers-21-things-about-sesame-street-that-will-blow-your-mind/ |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Gikow, Raposo won three Emmys and four Grammys for his work for the series.<ref name="Gikow 221"/>

=== International co-productions ===
{{Main|Sesame Street international co-productions}}
Soon after ''Sesame Street'' debuted in the US, the CTW was asked independently by producers from several countries to produce versions of the series in their countries.<ref name="cole-147">Cole et al. in Fisch & Truglio, p. 147</ref> Cooney remarked, "To be frank, I was really surprised, because we thought we were creating the quintessential American show. We thought the Muppets were quintessentially American, and it turns out they're the most international characters ever created".<ref name="knowlton">{{cite AV media| people = Knowlton, Linda Goldstein and Linda Hawkins Costigan (producers) | year = 2006| title = The World According to Sesame Street| medium = documentary| publisher = Participant Productions }}</ref>  She hired former [[CBS]] executive Mike Dann, who quit commercial television to become her assistant, as a CTW vice-president. One of Dann's tasks was to manage offers to produce versions of ''Sesame Street'' in other countries. In response to Dann's appointment, television critic [[Marvin Kitman]] said, "After [Dann] sells [''Sesame Street''] in Russia and Czechoslovakia, he might try Mississippi, where it is considered too controversial for educational TV".<ref name="davis-209">Davis, p. 209</ref> This was a reference to the May 1970 decision by the state's [[Mississippi Public Broadcasting|PBS station]] to not air the series.<ref>{{cite news | last = Guernsey | first = Lisa | title = How Sesame Street Changed the World | work = Newsweek | date = 23 May 2009 | url = http://www.newsweek.com/2009/05/22/sesame-street.html | access-date = 23 November 2019 | archive-date = 12 April 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160412165902/http://www.newsweek.com/2009/05/22/sesame-street.html | url-status = live }}</ref>  By summer 1970, Dann had made the first international agreements for what the CTW came to term "co-productions".<ref name="davis-209" />

[[File:TakalaniSesame-set.jpg|right|thumb|The [[South Africa]]n co-production ''[[Takalani Sesame]]'', with its unique set and some of the show's characters|alt=Television set, showing a large brick building on a city street; to the right, a large puppet is pushing a wheelbarrow and to the left, a man, next to a phone booth, is bending over several mail bags. Closer to the front of the image is a signpost, with a triangle that has a black figure and a yellow background, on top.]]

The earliest international versions were what CTW vice-president Charlotte Cole and her colleagues termed "fairly simple",<ref name="cole-147"/> consisting of dubbed versions of the series with local language voice-overs and instructional cutaways. Dubbed versions of the series continued to be produced if the country's needs and resources warranted it.<ref>Gikow, p. 252</ref> Eventually, a variant of the CTW model was used to create and produce independently produced preschool television series in other countries.<ref>Cole et al., in Fisch & Truglio, p. 148</ref> By 2006, there were twenty co-productions.<ref name="knowlton" /> In 2001, there were more than 120 million viewers of all international versions of ''Sesame Street'',<ref name="cole-147" /> and by the show's 50th anniversary in 2019, 190 million children viewed over 160 versions of ''Sesame Street'' in 70 languages.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wallace |first1=Debra |title=Big Bird Has 4,000 Feathers: 21 Fun Facts About Sesame Street That Will Blow Your Mind |url=https://parade.com/840056/debrawallace/big-bird-has-4000-feathers-21-things-about-sesame-street-that-will-blow-your-mind/ |access-date=23 November 2019 |work=Parade |date=23 November 2019 |archive-date=5 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210405031949/https://parade.com/840056/debrawallace/big-bird-has-4000-feathers-21-things-about-sesame-street-that-will-blow-your-mind/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="leaving">{{cite web |last1=Bradley |first1=Diana |title=Leaving the neighborhood: 'Sesame Street' muppets to travel across America next year |url=https://www.prweek.com/article/1489073/leaving-neighborhood-sesame-street-muppets-travel-across-america-next-year |website=PR Weekly |access-date=23 November 2019 |date=27 July 2018 |archive-date=19 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200619232740/https://www.prweek.com/article/1489073/leaving-neighborhood-sesame-street-muppets-travel-across-america-next-year |url-status=live }}</ref>  In 2005, Doreen Carvajal of ''The New York Times'' reported that income from the co-productions and international licensing accounted for $96 million.<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/business/media/12sesame.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print&|title = Sesame Street Goes Global: Let's All Count the Revenue|last = Carvajal|first = Doreen|date = 12 December 2005|work = The New York Times|access-date = 23 November 2019}}</ref>  As Cole and her colleagues reported in 2000, "Children's Television Workshop (CTW) can be regarded as the single largest informal educator of young children in the world".<ref name="cole-147"/>

=== Interactive media ===
[[Image:2009-08-31B - Count's Splash Castle.jpg|left|thumb|Count's Splash Castle, a water attraction at the amusement park [[Sesame Place Philadelphia|Sesame Place]].|alt=Line of people standing behind a fence looking at a colorful amusement park ride which is splashed by water.]]
{{Main|Sesame Street video games}}

Ten years after the premiere of ''Sesame Street'', the CTW began experimenting with new technologies. In 1979, it began to plan the development of a theme park, [[Sesame Place Philadelphia|Sesame Place]], which opened in 1980 in [[Langhorne, Pennsylvania]].<ref name="revelle-215">Revelle et al. in Fisch & Truglio, p. 215</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/atypical-theme-park|title = The Atypical Theme Park|date = Fall 2008|access-date = 23 November 2019|website = Pennsylvania Center for the Book|publisher = Pennsylvania State University|last = Miller|first = John M.|archive-date = 30 August 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190830163458/https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/atypical-theme-park|url-status = live}}</ref>  Three international parks, ''Parque Plaza Sesamo'' in [[Monterrey, Mexico]] since 1995, [[Universal Studios Japan]], and ''Vila Sesamo'' Kids' Land in [[Brazil]] were later built.<ref>Gikow, p. 284</ref> One of the park's features was a computer gallery, which was developed by a small in-house team and included 55 computer programs. The team evolved into the Children's Computer Workshop (CCW) in 1982, which was disbanded and became the Interactive Technologies division of the CTW in the late 1980s.<ref name="revelle-215" /><ref name="gikow-282">Gikow, p. 282</ref> As ''Sesame Street'' researcher Shalom M. Fisch stated, no television series could be as interactive as computer games, even "participatory"<ref>Fisch, Shalom M. (2004). ''Children's Learning from Educational Television: Sesame Street and Beyond.'' Mahweh, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 199. {{ISBN|0-8058-3936-4}}.</ref> shows like ''[[Blue's Clues]]'' or the ''Sesame Street'' segment "[[Elmo's World]]". The CTW has chosen to take advantage of the contingent feedback inherent in interactive computer games by developing and creating educational software based upon the television series' content and curriculum.<ref>Revelle et al. in Fisch & Truglio , p. 217</ref>

In 2008, Sesame Workshop began to offer clips and full-length episodes on the websites [[Hulu]], [[YouTube]], and [[iTunes]], where "Word on the Street" segments became the most popular webcast.<ref>Gikow, p. 285</ref> Sesame Workshop won a Peabody Award in 2009 for its website, sesamestreet.org.<ref>{{cite web |title=2009 Sesame Workshop |url=http://www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/sesamestreet.org |publisher=Peabody Awards |access-date=24 November 2019 |archive-date=9 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191009053212/http://www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/sesamestreet.org |url-status=live }}</ref>  In 2010, the Workshop began offering, for a subscription fee, a library of over 100 [[Ebooks|eBooks]].  The on-line publishing platform was managed by the electronic publishing company [[Impelsys]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Getzler |first1=Wendy Goldman |title=Sesame Street debuts new eBookstore |url=http://kidscreen.com/2010/05/20/ebooks-20100520/ |access-date=23 November 2019 |work=Kidscreen |date=20 May 2010 |archive-date=24 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224040546/https://kidscreen.com/2010/05/20/ebooks-20100520/ |url-status=live }}</ref>