Can You Tell Me How To Get
To Sesamstrasse?
(continued from page 2)
Marketing Support
In each market, CTW supports its educational mission and its
brand not only with television, but with book and magazine publishing,
home video, licensing, promotions and theme parks. "We look
for the best opportunities to extend the reach and power of Sesame
Street off the screen," says Miller. "Publishing,
along with home video, is a very important foundation."
CTW has its own book imprint with U.S. publisher Random House. In
each country where Sesame Street, a co-production or Open
Sesame airs, a combination of Random House and local titles
are available. CTW also publishes six magazines in the U.S., including
Sesame Street Magazine, Sesame Street Parents, Padres
de Sasame Street (for Hispanic-American parents), Kid City
and Contact Kids; some Sesame Street magazines are
distributed in international markets as well.
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Zeliboba,
Busya, and Kubik in the Russian co-production Ulitsa Sezam.
© CTW. Sesame Street Muppets © Henson.
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Licensing also strengthens the Sesame
Street brand around the world. CTW's licensing strategy is similar
from one market to another, varying mostly in scope. "It differs
in terms of what the market can bear and how developed licensing
is," Miller says. If consumers do not accept licensed products
as readily as in the U.S. or other mature licensing markets, then
CTW tests the waters slowly.
The majority of products in each market depict the U.S.-origin Muppets
known worldwide, although some items feature characters specific
to that country. Merchandise such as apparel and paper goods can
be produced cost-effectively by local manufacturers for just one
market and can feature local characters. Others, such as toys, require
heavy product investment; licensees, therefore, want to distribute
in as many countries as possible and incorporate globally recognized
characters that allow them to do so.
All told, CTW has authorized more than 10,000 items worldwide through
300 licensing agreements. The organization has allied with a number
of promotional partners as well, including Nestlé for Ulitsa
Sezam in Russia and General Electric for Zhima Jie in
China. Meanwhile, Sesame Street characters star at three
theme parks, Anheuser-Busch's Sesame Place in Pennsylvania, eight-year-old
Tokyo Sesame Place and Parque Plaza Sesamo in Monterrey, Mexico.
A fourth, Vila Sesame, is in the works for Brazil.
Other CTW Animated Programming
In addition to Sesame Street, Children's Television Workshop
produces other programming for international distribution, some
of which is animated or features significant animation components.
One example is Big Bag, a preschool series that airs on The
Cartoon Network in the U.S. Like Sesame Street, the series
takes place on a studio set with Muppet and human characters; the
live scenes are interspersed with short animated segments in a variety
of styles.
Broadcasters in 53 countries air Big Bag, while TV2 in Denmark,
Icelandic National Broadcasting in Iceland, Wharf Cable and Asia
Television in Hong Kong and Fundacao Roberto Marinho in Brazil carry
one or more of the animated shorts -- in which recurring characters
appear -- as standalone series.
Following Sesame Street's co-production model, broadcasters
in two countries have created local versions of Big Bag,
with unique Muppets, actors and content. The French version, Sacatruc,
which premiered in 1997 on Canal J, features more arts and crafts
content than the U.S. version and contains other elements specific
to French culture. "Sacatruc is a French show,"
Miller says. The British version of Big Bag was introduced
on ITV in 1998.
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Dragon
Tales. TM and © 1999 CTW/CTTD.
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Another CTW series, co-produced with Columbia
TriStar Television, is Dragon Tales, an animated preschool
program that launched in September 1999 on PBS's Ready To Learn
service with 40 half-hours. Each episode is comprised of two 12-minute
segments with musical interstitials, a flexible structure that Miller
believes will enhance international sales. The series, which is
expected to launch outside the U.S. in January 2000, is about accepting
the unknown. Hasbro is on board as the worldwide master toy licensee
and CTW plans a full merchandising campaign to back the launch.
The Workshop is looking to invest in international programming in
the early development stage and expects that some of the co-ventures
will premiere internationally before they start in the U.S. One
such alliance is with Pepper's Ghost Productions in the U.K., for
a series called Tiny Planets. CTW is also planning to create
programming specifically for the Internet.
Karen Raugust is the author of several books and reports on licensing
and entertainment, including The Licensing Business Handbook,
International Licensing: A Status Report (both available
from EPM Communications, New York) and Merchandise Licensing
for the Television Industry (available from Focal Press, Newton,
Mass.). She also writes about licensing, animation and other topics
for publications including The Hollywood Reporter, Publishers
Weekly and Animation Magazine, and acts as a consultant
to the licensing and entertainment industries. She is the former
Executive Editor of The Licensing Letter.
