Sesame Workshop

Sesame Workshop, Inc. (SW), originally known as the '''Children's Television Workshop, Inc. (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. Television producer Joan Ganz Cooney and foundation executive Lloyd Morrisett developed the idea to form an organization to produce ''Sesame Street'', a television series which would help children, especially those from low-income families, prepare for school. 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."

''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''. On June 5, 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. As of 2021, Sherrie Westin is the Workshop's president. Provided by Wikipedia