New Books Network Tamara Kay, "Sesame Street Around the World: Culture, Politics, and Transnational Organizational Partnerships" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Mar 7, 2026
Tamara Kay, a professor who spent seven years researching Sesame Street co-productions worldwide. She describes how Sesame Workshop co-produces local versions through collaboration, disassembly and reconstitution of the show, and careful dissemination. The conversation covers team structures, managing cultural conflicts, inclusion choices, funding pressures, outreach strategies, and lessons for transnational partnerships.
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Sesame Street Built By One Transnational Team
- Sesame Workshop uses a transnational co-production model that forms one joint team of local experts and New York staff to create each local Sesame Street.
- The local team (producers, writers, artists, educators) leads production with New York providing coaching so the show reads as local yet still Sesame Street.
Dubbing Failed So Brazil And Germany Got Local Shows
- Early experiments with dubbing failed because children saw U.S. visuals like the flag, so Sesame Workshop shifted to local co-productions in the 1970s.
- Brazil's Vila Sésamo and Germany's co-production became iconic examples of locally produced versions.
Three Phases Of Co-production
- Kay describes co-production as three phases: disassembly (explain the product), reconstitution (customize into a hybrid), and dissemination (local rollout and outreach).
- Each phase has distinct tasks: align interests, exchange cultural knowledge to create a Sesame-like but local product, then mobilize broadcasters, governments, and NGOs to distribute it.
