Comment on Corporation for Public Media

One big reason Sesame Street is so successful in nearly every medium is that it invests a tremendous amount of money ($9.5 million in 2007) in research--not the kind of research directed toward measuring the audience or telling them what features or characters will draw more eyeballs, but research into the effectiveness of the program in carrying out its mission to educate. In other words, the Sesame Workshop constantly tests its product with an eye toward making it better, not more popular.

In interviews I did with Gary Knell, Joan Ganz Cooney, and others for a recent magazine article and series of blog posts, the prevalent theme wasn't how big their audience was (I had to dig that info up myself), but rather how effectively the various programs have made a difference in children's lives. Their focus is on doing good, not being large. Funny how success rewards that philosophy.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Muppets Changing the World - Part 3

Sesame Street is on a global mission led by CEO Gary Knell. The program has always had some international distribution (a Mexican version, Plaza Sésamo premiered in 1972), but Knell has spread those shaggy puppet teachers into more than 120 countries and sees more on the horizon. “There are 150 million pre-school kids in India. It would be the fourth largest country in the world—made up entirely of five year olds,” he says, savoring the prospects. The opportunity is huge, but the mission is serious, according to Knell. “We take our model using research, content, and plot lines that deal with literacy, girls education, tolerance and respect, HIV/AIDS, global health and other issues.”

Knell is an inveterate globe-trotter himself, constantly on the move setting up partnerships with educators and production companies around the world. He got a good grounding for that early in his career, when he served as Managing Director of Manager Media International, a print and multimedia business based in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Of course, his conversations today are with a different group of movers and shakers than the advertisers in Asia Times. When I visited his office recently, I noticed a framed handwritten note from Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein and spokesman for the Provisional Irish Republican Army. It says “PS: Thanks for the Cookie Monster!” The Workshop is working right now in another hotspot, Kosovo.

Sesame Street reaches about 8 million kids a week on TV in the U.S. and 70 million kids around the globe, according to Knell. “But there are 700,000,000 kids under 9 around the world with access to TV, so we’ve still got plenty of room to grow.”

It all melds together to make Sesame Street a significant influence on children everywhere. As founder Joan Ganz Cooney points out, “The domestic show is affected by work we’re doing abroad, just as the American versions affect the international versions. Sesame Street wants to make children aware of the world they live in, that it is bigger than where they live in the U.S.” Watch Sesame Street these days and you’re as likely to see Elmo wearing an Egyptian galabya and drinking mint tea as chomping on chocolate chip wafers with his blue googley-eyed friend, Cookie Monster.

Knell isn’t afraid to encourage his staff to take on unpleasant current issues, either, especially when they affect the lives of children. He’s very proud of the 400,000 Sesame Street DVD’s he got Wal-Mart to pay for to help families of U.S. soldiers serving overseas. The program helps them deal with issues of deployment, re-deployment, and homecoming, sometimes by fathers in wheelchairs.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Muppets Changing the World - Part 2

Gary Knell took over as CEO of Sesame Workshop not long after the organization’s founder, Joan Ganz Cooney, recruited him from WNET/Channel 13, where he was General Counsel. She attributes much of Sesame Workshop’s ability to compete to Knell’s idealism and enthusiasm. “He is high, high energy,” she told me, adding, “He is the best leader we’ve ever had, and that includes me.”

“One of the things he did that was astonishingly wonderful was putting together the partners for Sprout, the cable channel that is all pre-school all the time,” Cooney says. “He put together the partners, which include HiT Entertainment in London, PBS, and Comcast, who put up most of the money. We didn’t put up money, but, thanks to Gary’s skill, we ended up as part owners of the channel.” Knell also sold Noggin, which was a cable channel the Workshop started in partnership with Nickelodeon, to raise the money to buy the Muppets when they came on the market.

While Knell has been pushing the Workshop into new media, he hasn’t ignored the original mission of Sesame Street, which was to reach and teach preschoolers, particularly in disadvantaged homes. “We take this really seriously,” he says. “We’re the only show that has consistently looked at child development issues and applied those to media in a regularized way.” According to their annual report, the organization spent almost $9.5 million on research in 2007. Most of it, he explains, “is scientific educational research where we test segments with kids to make sure they’re pulling the lessons that are intended from the content.”

“For example, we did a segment a few years ago where Snuffie’s parents got divorced. Kids in tests thought their parents were going to get divorced every time they had an argument, so we never aired the segment.”

Dr. Mary Ann Reilly, an Associate Professor who teaches courses in K-12 literacy at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY, points out that this is vastly different from the type of research done for commercial programs: “If you want to know what kind of sugared cereal you should eat, you can watch the Disney Channel. If you want to be a little bit more enlightened, you look at Sesame Street.”

Over 4,000 hours of Sesame Street have been created. The Workshop still produces 26 new shows every year so it stays perpetually current with issues of the day like childhood obesity and environmental concerns. But the program has been on the air nearly 40 years (the first episode aired November 10, 1969) and it’s still peopled by a singing green frog, brought to you by the Letter G and the Number 3, and takes place on a city street where graffiti apparently magically disappears. Is it relevant to kids today?

“Of course it’s relevant,” says Dr. Reilly. “Without question, there are far more choices for parents in terms of television watching. When I see some of the things on the channels dedicated to children, though, it’s truly alarming. From the Navy Seal ads to really questionable violence and things of that sort. A show that has movement, fantasy, fun, lots of language going on, notions of a neighborhood that’s integrated, that’s extremely relevant.”

Remember, too, while you may have seen all 4,000 episodes, your three-year-old hasn’t. Bert and Ernie are new neighbors to them.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds

Muppets Changing the World - Part 1

Gary Knell has a permanent twinkle in his eye. And why not? He’s a 54-year-old guy who goes to the office every morning to teach 70 million kids to read with the help of an eight-foot yellow bird. Sure sounds to me like a lot more fun than selling municipal bonds.

Knell is Big Bird’s boss, not to mention Kermit, Cookie Monster, and the goofy, glorious Elmo. He’s the CEO of Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization that brings your pre-schooler Sesame Street each morning. I dare say every single kid in America—and their parents—know where Oscar the Grouch lives and can sing Ernie's “Rubber Ducky” song.

But all is not just sunshine and happy songs on Sesame Street these days. Sometimes, it’s more like trench warfare. “In 1988, there were two pre-school shows in the United States, Mr. Rogers and us,” Knell says. “Today there are literally fifty pre-school programs on TV, plus six competing networks.”

Sesame Street is still the number one show for kids 2-11 in the New York DMA (where I live), according to the A.C. Nielsen ratings for February, but it’s closely followed by Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the Disney Channel, and Ni Hao, Kai-lan and Dora the Explorer on Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon, Disney, Noggin, Discovery Channel, TLC, and the Cartoon Network basically ran the commercial broadcasting stations out of the kids television business several years ago. Is Sesame Street next?

Not if Knell and his little staff of 350 have anything to say about it. With their measly annual budget of $125 million, they go toe-to-toe with the mega-media likes of Disney (annual revenues $36 billion), Viacom ($13 billion), and Time Warner ($46 billion) every day, vying for the attention of all those three-year-old consumers in an electronic universe with hundreds of TV channels as well as DVD’s, web sites, cell phones, and video games. To win, Knell has led the organization into new media with a vengeance since he took over as CEO in 1999.

You’ll find Sesame Street everywhere on the web, starting with SesameStreet.org. “You have access to 2,000 video clips in perfect digital quality that are catalogued by curriculum and by character,” Knell says with a trace of wonder in his voice. “If you want to teach your kid to count backwards, for example, you can call up a video with Count von Count. We view that as our channel of the future.” The brand is also a big draw on YouTube—a segment with Chris Brown and Elmo last year drew over five million views.

According to Knell, Sesame Workshop had the #1 podcast on the web last year, too. “Word on the Street” on iTunes uses Conan O’Brien, Brian Williams, John Stewart, and other well-known media personalities to help kids build vocabulary by playing with a word of the day along with a Muppet. Don’t be surprised if you see a mom holding her cell phone in front of a kid in the supermarket checkout line—she’s probably showing them a Sesame Street clip.

Then there is video on demand: “You can pull down Sesame Street and play it back for your kids while you’re cooking dinner,” Knell points out enthusiastically. He says a million moms and kids download Sesame Street through Comcast alone each month.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds