People

Elmo puppeteer on leave after allegation of improper relationship; accuser recants

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Puppeteer Kevin Clash, the performer behind Elmo, one of Sesame Street’s most beloved characters,  has taken a leave of absence following news reports of an allegation that he had an inappropriate relationship with an underage boy, according to a statement released today by Sesame Workshop. The accuser recanted Tuesday afternoon (see update, below). The Workshop heard of the allegation in June, when a 23-year-old who claimed to have had a relationship with Clash at the age of 16 first communicated with the company. “We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action,” the Workshop said in its statement. “We met with the accuser twice and had repeated communications with him.

Quick Takes

Sesame Workshop launches educational franchise business in India

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Sesame Workshop is getting into the for-profit educational franchise business, starting with India, where it’s launching Sesame Schoolhouse preschools and after-school clubs, reports the Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time blog. The Workshop has had a presence in the country since 2006 with Galli Galli Sim Sim, the Hindi version of Sesame Street. Sesame Workshop India also takes the show on mobile screens into slum communities in five cities. Sesame Workshop aims to have 20 franchised schools open by March 2013, with plans for 382 within five years, according to the report. So far, one has opened in Jaipur, the capital and largest city in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan.

People

Alvarado joins CIR, Knight fellows announced, NewsHour hires new managing editor, and more…

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Alvarado, a former APM and CPB exec, is joining the Center for Investigative Reporting
The nonprofit news organization announced on May 2 that Alvarado will serve as chief strategy officer and work to expand membership, engage diverse audiences and increase revenue for the San Francisco–based center, the nation’s oldest nonprofit investigative reporting organization. Alvarado also will take a leadership role in the center’s upcoming Knight Foundation–funded YouTube investigative channel. Alvarado departed in March from American Public Media, where he served as senior v.p. for digital innovation for two years. In 2009, he led efforts to bring more diversity and digital innovation to public media as a CPB senior v.p.

“When I joined the board of CIR last year,” Alvarado said in a statement, “I said that CIR exemplifies a truly networked newsroom with some of the most talented reporters and producers working today. It’s still true — and even more so with the merger with the Bay Citizen,” the local nonprofit online news hub.

Programs/Content

Knell: familiar with dynamics

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NPR’s next president already knows how a strong production house can continue to work with pubcasting stations — and also expand its reach with non-broadcast distribution partners. For nearly 12 years Gary Knell has managed one of PBS’s prize program providers, Sesame Workshop, which made cable deals and vastly enlarged its audience on the Web while keeping the first play of its primo content on PBS. Knell, like his NPR predecessor, Vivian Schiller, as well as recent PBS leaders, wants to play the major original productions in as many venues as possible, though with the member stations continuing to hold an exclusive broadcast window. “It’s radio-first distribution,” Knell told Current, “Then it should be made available more broadly, tweeted and smeeted,” he said, coining a word for additional varieties of social media. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re all over all that stuff.”

Under David Britt, Knell’s predecessor as president of the Manhattan-based production institution, the Workshop negotiated an end to PBS’s exclusive rights to its flagship program, Sesame Street, and in 1999 released older episodes to a cable venture — Noggin, a cable net co-owned with Viacom’s Nickelodeon.

People

Gary Knell, Sesame Workshop c.e.o., hired as NPR president

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Gary E. Knell, president and c.e.o. of Sesame Workshop for a decade, will start work Dec. 1 with the same titles at NPR, the network announced today. The NPR Board voted unanimously to hire the widely experienced leader of a comparably prominent, esteemed and successful public media institution who had preparatory stints as a legislative aide and in private media and public TV. An NPR spokesperson said Knell would take a reduction pay. His Sesame Workshop compensation came to more than $746,000, NPR’s David Folkenflik reported today [Mark Memmott’s blog].

Quick Takes

Cooney, Fanning honored in Austin

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Children’s television pioneer and Sesame Street creator Joan Ganz Cooney is the recipient of this year’s Be More Award from PBS. She accepted her honor at the PBS National Meeting, continuing in Austin. From the podium, PBS President Paula Kerger said Cooney’s work from 1968 to 1990 at her Children’s Television Workshop makes her “one of the single greatest educators of children in the world.” Former Be More winners include Bill Moyers and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Frontline’s David Fanning received the 38th annual Ralph Lowell Award from CPB last night in Austin.