Sesame Workshop will ‘downsize significantly’ with layoffs, CEO says
Sesame Workshop will “downsize significantly” announced president and CEO Sherrie Rollins Westin on Wednesday in a note to staff.
The layoffs come about two months after Max said it would stop distributing Sesame Street episodes after 2025 and within a day after more than 200 of its employees asked for Sesame Workshop to recognize that they want to form a union. Cast – like puppeteers – crew and writers are already unionized, said a statement from OPEIU Local 153.
“Amid the changing media and funding landscape, we have made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our organization,” a Sesame Workshop spokesperson wrote in an email to NPR.
Last December, Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Max, announced that, after 10 years, it was not renewing its deal to fund new episodes of the iconic children’s series. At the time, the corporation said its priorities had shifted and that Sesame Street was “not as core to our strategy.”
Sesame Workshop said the layoffs “are necessary to ensure that the Workshop is poised to continue to deliver on its mission for years to come but that does not make the human impact of these reductions any less painful.”
Max is currently airing the 55th season of Sesame Street. Sesame Workshop has not announced a new distributor, but said production on its 56th season will begin next month.
Story edited by Jennifer Vanasco and Kristian Monroe.
Photos: Deadly tornadoes hit Kentucky and Missouri
Over 20 people have died since severe storms and tornadoes hit Kentucky and Missouri overnight. Meteorologists are beginning to survey the damage.
Paleontologists discover a 500-million-year-old, 3-eyed predator
Fossils of the underwater predator shed new light on biodiversity from the Cambrian period.
Investigators respond to scene of an explosion rocking Palm Springs, Calif.
The explosion occurred at the site of a fertility clinic. A doctor there said the office space was damaged but the IVF lab and its stored embryos were unharmed.
More than 20 dead after tornadoes sweep through Kentucky and Missouri
Powerful storms and tornadoes tore through several Midwestern and Southern states overnight Friday, leaving carnage and flattened buildings in their wake.
Opinion: A wealth of wisdom for a bargain price
NPR's Scott Simon reflects on the discovery that what Harvard University thought was a copy of the Magna Carta is actually an original.
Bessemer residents want answers about a four-million-square-foot data center coming to their backyards
Residents in and around Bessemer are furious over Project Marvel, a plan to build a 4.5-million-square-foot data processing facility on 700 acres of wooded land. Public officials have been sworn to silence.
