Gary E Knell, President & CEO, Sesame Workshop

Sesame Workshop, which has Gary E Knell at its helm as President and CEO, is a non-profit organisation of writers, artists, researchers, and educators. Popularly known for its programme ‘Sesame Street’, Sesame Workshop creates innovative and engaging educational content for children from birth through age 12 in over 120 countries.

Knell has been instrumental in focusing the organisation on Sesame Street’s global mission, including co-productions in South Africa, Russia, China and Egypt.

To help promote educational opportunities for the children of India, Sesame Workshop is developing a multimedia educational initiative for 2-8 year-olds modeled on Sesame Street, the Workshop’s landmark educational series for pre-schoolers titled ‘Galli Galli Sim Sim’. Turner Broadcasting, the foremost provider of children’s entertainment channels worldwide, is a major partner in this effort.

Knell, previously the MD of Manager Media International, a print and multimedia publishing company based in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore, and the Senior VP and General Counsel at WNET/Channel 13 in New York, shares more about Sesame Street and ‘Galli Galli Sim Sim’ with exchange4media’s Sumita Patra.

Q. How does the Sesame Workshop model work?

The model is based on production, research and content. We go in to a local environment and we try to get together the experts, the ministry of education, academic and creative people who try to come up with a curriculum that’s local.

Q. What is the secret behind the long running success of Sesame Street?

The secret is the muppets and the localisation.

Q. Which are the other countries you will be taking Sesame Street to?

We are looking at going to Northern Ireland this year.

Q. What kind of research was undertaken before bringing Sesame Street in India?

We have several discussions with NGOs and other organizations prior to bringing Sesame Street to India.

Q. What are the new ways that Sesame Workshop will adopt to educate children?

New technology is one way. We will make sure that television shows are relevant and our children engage in story telling and TV viewing.

Q. So, you feel that India faces the most challenges as far as problems are concerned?

Yes, I think it’s a hugely challenging environment because of the diversity of the population. Turner has made seven years of commitment to broadcast the show and that will give us five seasons of production to cover a gamut of issues.

Q. What is the message that you are going to convey through this programme?

We have a wide curriculum. Health, hygiene and diversity are some of the issues that form part of our curriculum.

Q. What are your other plans for the Indian market?

Well, we have no current plans. In other countries, we have done shows on mathematics and science, and we certainly would be interested in pursuing that, but we have no plans right now.

Q. What is Sesame Workshop all about?

Sesame Workshop is a non-profit organisation based in New York, whose mission is to use media to help children reach their highest potential. We view it as a workshop, which is evolving both in terms of media as well as in terms of approach to make sure that we are reaching the target audience that we are trying to reach.

Q. How did Sesame Street get its name?

Many children’s programmes are traditionally fantasy type settings, but Sesame Street was never like that. It was kind of a window to the real world so we actually dealt with the issues in the US, we discussed about marriage and divorce and death. One of the characters actually died and we dealt with the issue by showing a muppet discussing what death means in an American context. So, we have not shied away from dealing with those kinds of issues and have shown children who are physically disabled, in the French co-production we used a little girl muppet in a wheelchair. In South Africa, we showed an HIV-positive muppet who the children play with and are friends with. This will help children consider people who are HIV-positive in a very different way. So, we can use these characters to make a difference.

Q. How powerful are these muppets for addressing grave issues?

They are very powerful. We view them as teachers. They may have a funny personality and are different and they have sense of humour and different shades of colours, but they all try to promote important lessons of life. I think the children will relate to these muppets and they will treat them as friends. These muppets can teach an important lesson – that’s the whole prerogative.

Q. What are the major challenges you faced while producing or writing for a television series, especially children’s series?

The major challenges were really trying to identify the need that we could address effectively. In Russia, we can do a programme on washing your hands or brushing your teeth, in India certain parts of the population have no access to clean water, so solving those sets of complexities are most challenging. We leave such issues up to our partners here. We have a wonderful lady, Dr Asha Singh, who is our educational advisor.

Q. Why haven’t you retained the Sesame Street name in India?

We try to have a localised version of the show in each country, and I think our Indian advisors thought that a local name would be more relevant here. We wanted a name that in Hindi could mean something more to the largest language group.

Q. How will you differentiate the viewership pattern of Indian kids vis-à-vis kids around the world?

Well, I think children in India are more media savvy.

Q. Sesame Workshop was founded in 1968, how has the journey traversed so far been?

It’s a long one. We like to create Sesame Workshop, Sesame Street as the longest street in the world. The street has traveled to over 120 countries. We have done local indigenous productions for 25 of them, which are the most effective because they are locally produced. So, this is not an American show. It has simply bumped into India, it’s very much an Indian programme that has been developed here and that will succeed depending on how well it is accepted locally.

Q. At an entertainment summit in Los Angeles, you had said that ‘Sesame Street is the longest street in the world’. Where all has this ‘street’ extended?

It has extended to 120 countries. The only continent that we are not in is Antartica! We will be launching a programme in Indonesia as well later this year. We are working on new productions in France, Mexico, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.

Q. Please tell us more about Galli Galli Sim Sim. How different will the format be? What will the target audience be like?

Different set, locally produced, different muppets, which are all locally originated and created. A common street that will look very Indian and human actors, children and adults who will be representatives of the population most children will identify with. The target audience will be children in the 2-8 year age group. The show will be aired five days a week, three times a day – twice on POGO and once on Cartoon Network.

Q. What took you so long to come to India?

Well, I think we did not want to enter India like this. The issues here are more complex than virtually in another country. We wanted to have the resources lined up, so we have a long-term commitment with Turner. This gives us the ability to leverage their desires with our desires and come up with a long-term game plan so that we can be here for a long duration.

Q. How can media help children reach their highest potential?

Children have a natural attraction to media and this is a universal fact. We come with the belief that television is the most powerful teacher. Now we can argue whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a reality. So, the question is not just television teaches, the question is what does it teach. What interests me is that despite huge economic challenges, television is reaching millions and millions of people in India, and if you can use it to promote some of the popular agendas that we have created here with our partners, it has the potential to have an enormous impact.

Q. Where do you see your company five years from now?

We will try to do programmes like we do in India. We feel it is very important to have a local presence through local NGOs and manage locally, which we haven’t done much in the past. That is our No. 1 priority. No. 2 is the advent of new technology. We have to figure out how we can use some models to download videos, so that’s going to be a challenge.