Sesame Workshop

Sesame Workshop
FoundedMay 20, 1968; 56 years ago (1968-05-20)
FoundersJoan Ganz Cooney
Lloyd Morrisett
TypeNon-profit
13-2655731
Legal status501(c)(3)
Headquarters1 Lincoln Plaza
Location
Area served
Worldwide
Sherrie Westin
Sherrie Westin
SubsidiariesSesame Street Inc
Sesame Workshop Communications Inc
Sesame Workshop Initiatives India PLC
SS Brand Management Shanghai
Revenue (2014)
US$104,728,963
Expenses (2014)US$111,255,622
Employees813 (in 2013)
Websitesesameworkshop.org
Formerly called
Children's Television Workshop (CTW) (1968–2000)
[1][2][3]

Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-known, Sesame Street—that have been televised internationally. Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett developed the idea to form an organization to produce the Sesame Street television series. They spent two years, from 1966 to 1968, researching, developing, and raising money for the new series. Cooney was named as the Workshop's first executive director, which was termed "one of the most important television developments of the decade."[4]

Sesame Street premiered on National Educational Television (NET) as a series run in the United States on November 10, 1969, and moved to NET's successor, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), in late 1970. The Workshop was formally incorporated in 1970. Gerald S. Lesser and Edward L. Palmer were hired to perform research for the series; they were responsible for developing a system of planning, production, and evaluation, and the interaction between television producers and educators, later termed the "CTW model". The CTW applied this system to its other television series, including The Electric Company and 3-2-1 Contact. The early 1980s were a challenging period for the Workshop; difficulty finding audiences for their other productions and a series of bad investments harmed the organization until licensing agreements stabilized its revenues by 1985.

Following the success of Sesame Street, the CTW developed other activities, including unsuccessful ventures into adult programs, the publications of books and music, and international co-productions. In 1999 the CTW partnered with MTV Networks to create an educational channel called Noggin. The Workshop produced a variety of original series for Noggin, including The Upside Down Show, Sponk! and Out There. In June 2000, the CTW changed its name to Sesame Workshop to better represent its activities beyond television.

By 2005, income from the organization's international co-productions of the series was $96 million. By 2008, the Sesame Street Muppets accounted for $15–17 million per year in licensing and merchandising fees. Sherrie Westin is the president of the company, starting in 2021.

  1. ^ "Form 990: Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax". Sesame Workshop. Guidestar. June 30, 2014.
  2. ^ "Sesame Workshop Archived 2018-05-05 at the Wayback Machine". Exempt Organization Select Check. Internal Revenue Service. Accessed on May 20, 2016.
  3. ^ "Our Leadership". Sesame Workshop. Archived from the original on June 12, 2021. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference davis125126 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).