User:Oscarfan/Format of Sesame Street

Sesame Street is not just an educational television program. It's an ongoing experiment in using the medium of television to teach.

Magazine Format (1969 - 2001)

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 * Writers Panel from Paley Center
 * Street Gang for season 30 format

Structured Format (2002 - 2008)

 * LA Times
 * The overall goal was to make the show simpler to follow....The humor and characters that children identify with were indispensable, Sherman said. But what she calls the show's "laissez-faire format" had to give way. Also complicating the picture were kids' familiarity these days with computers and other video forms and the show's hour length in a world where most shows are 30 minutes. In its biggest change to appeal to the younger crowd, "Sesame Street" has broken itself into segments that will air at the same time every day, just as a segment called "Elmo's World" has since 1999. The predictability mimics the nap and snack routines of toddlers.

Block Format (2009 - 2015)

 * Season 40 press release
 * With over 21 million minutes (and counting) since Count von Count’s first “ah ah ah,” the groundbreaking children’s program that began as an experiment has evolved and continues to grow with children and their changing needs. As preschoolers today have different viewing habits, the 40th season has been reformatted to resemble a typical broadcasting block. Murray the Monster Muppet™ hosts each episode from different locations linking four longer segments with fun-filled interstitials throughout the hour. The block format begins and ends with a brand new show open and close, integrating colorful chalk-art animation with the Muppets™ of Sesame Street, set to the re-versioned classic “Sunny Days."

Half Hour (2015 - present)

 * Time
 * "30 minutes is about as long as you can get [for mobile],” Lesli Rotenberg, PBS’s general manager of children’s programming, told the New York Times about the new format. “The hourlong show didn’t lend itself as well to that.”


 * Vulture
 * And they cut the show to a half-hour. “That was from testing too,” says Parente. “The audience was younger and younger, and they would have this fatigue.”