NEW DELHI: Children’s educator and creator of the world famous Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop is in talks with Indian pubcaster Doordarshan for an alliance to reach out to maximum number of children in India.
“Talks with Doordarshan are in early stages, but we are exploring an option to have a weekend window (time band or slot),” Sesame Workshop president and CEO Gary E. Knell told Indiantelevision.com today.
DD’s terrestrial platform is being explored by Sesame Workshop, a non-profit organization, as it wants to reach out to the maximum number of children through its innovative and educative programmes. Especially those who do not have access to cable and satellite television.
To target kids in India’s approximately 61 million C&S households, Sesame Workshop has tied up with Tuner International India (managers of Cartoon Network and Pogo) and the New Delhi-based production house Miditech to bring an Indian version of Sesame Street called Galli Galli Sim Sim from mid-2006 .
According to Knell, ideally his company would like to have a time slot on DD’s terrestrial network that is suitable for children viewing and where Sesame Workshop characters can be used to spread public service messages too.
Apart from that, the Sesame Workshop-Turner combine will also explore production of Sesame Street in another Indian language, which could be Tamil. Galli Galli Sim Sim will be in Hindi on Pogo.
"The work on the other language production, apart from Hindi, will start in a couple of months' time," Knell said.
Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit educational organization making a meaningful difference in the lives of children around the world. Founded in 1968, the Workshop changed television forever with the legendary Sesame Street.
Today, the Workshop continues to innovate on behalf of children in 120 countries, using its proprietary research methodology to ensure its programmes and products are engaging and enriching.
Sesame Workshop is behind award-winning programs like Dragon Tales, Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat, Pinky Dinky Doo and groundbreaking multimedia productions in South Africa, Egypt and Russia.
