Influence of Sesame Street facts for kids
Sesame Street, a famous children's TV show, first aired in 1969. It quickly became very popular, got great reviews, and even caused some discussions and debates. Even though not everyone in America could watch it at first, it had a lot of viewers. By 1979, about 9 million American kids under six watched Sesame Street every day!
The show's popularity changed over time, especially in the 1990s, as TV watching habits changed. However, a survey in 1996 showed that 95% of all American children had watched Sesame Street by the time they were three years old. By 2009, when the show turned 40, it was still one of the most popular children's shows.
According to writer Michael Davis, Sesame Street is "perhaps the most vigorously researched, vetted, and fretted-over program." This means it's one of the most carefully studied and planned TV shows ever! By 2001, over 1,000 studies had looked at how well it worked and what impact it had on American culture. Early studies in 1970 and 1971 showed that Sesame Street really helped kids learn. Many more studies over the years have confirmed that the show continued to help its young viewers.
Sesame Street has also faced some disagreements during its long run. For example, in 1970, a group in Mississippi voted to stop the show from being shown on their state's educational TV. Some groups, like Latino and feminist organizations, also criticized the show for how it showed certain people. But the show's creators have always worked to fix these issues. By 2009, Sesame Street had won 118 Emmy Awards, which is more than any other TV series!
How Many People Watched Sesame Street?
When Sesame Street first started in 1969, it was available in about 67% of American homes. It quickly got a 3.3 Nielsen rating, meaning 1.9 million homes were watching. The Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the group behind Sesame Street, said these numbers were actually very good. They found that about a quarter of all preschool children watched the show regularly. Also, 90% of homes watching the show had children under six.
In 1970, the CTW checked how many people were watching in big cities like New York and Chicago. The results showed that many people were indeed watching the show. Sesame Street's popularity grew even more in its second year. Nielsen, the company that tracks TV viewership, reported that people who watched the show tended to watch it often. The show's ratings kept going up for its first five years, making it the most-watched program on PBS. By 1985, the CTW thought that about 20% of its regular viewers were adults without children.
By 1979, when the show was ten years old, 9 million American children under six watched Sesame Street every day. Four out of five children had watched it over a six-week period. Also, 90% of children from low-income city homes watched the show regularly. A 1993 survey by the US Department of Education found that out of 6.6 million viewers, 2.4 million kindergartners watched it often.
The show reached most young children from all kinds of backgrounds. This was especially true for children from less wealthy families. About 88% of children from low-income families watched the show before kindergarten. Also, 90% of both African-American and Latino children watched it before starting school. More than 80% of children from all minority language groups watched it before school. Younger children and those from the poorest areas were most likely to be regular viewers.
The show's ratings went down in the early 1990s. This happened because kids' TV habits and the TV world had changed a lot. In 1969, there weren't many TV shows for kids. But in the 1980s, home video became popular, and in the 90s, many new kids' shows appeared on cable channels like Nickelodeon. These new shows, which were often inspired by Sesame Street, meant fewer people watched Sesame Street. In 2002, The New York Times said that "learning to click the remote control has become a developmental milestone." The people who made Sesame Street changed the show a lot to keep up with these new trends.
By 2006, Sesame Street was "the most widely viewed children's television show in the world." It had 20 different versions made in other countries and was shown in over 120 countries. A 1996 survey found that 95% of all American preschoolers had watched the show by age three. In 2006, it was estimated that 75 million Americans had watched the show when they were kids. By its 40th anniversary in 2009, it was the fifteenth most popular children's show. By its 50th anniversary in 2019, everyone around the world knew about Sesame Street. In 2018, it was the second-highest-rated show on PBS Kids.
How Sesame Street Made a Difference
As writer Michael Davis said, Sesame Street is "perhaps the most vigorously researched, vetted, and fretted-over program." This means it was planned and studied very carefully. By 2001, over 1,000 research studies had looked at how effective it was and its impact on American culture. The CTW asked the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to do important studies on the show.
ETS did two major studies in 1970 and 1971. These studies showed that Sesame Street had a big positive effect on what its viewers learned. These early studies provided most of the information about how Sesame Street helped kids learn. They have also been used in other studies about how TV affects young children. More studies done throughout Sesame Street's history have continued to show that the program helps its young viewers.
Gerald S. Lesser, who was the first head of CTW's advisory board, believed that Sesame Street research made studying how TV affects children more respected. He also thought the show made creating children's TV programs more respected in the TV industry. Historian Robert Morrow wrote a book called Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television. He said that many people who criticized regular TV saw Sesame Street as a clear example of how children's TV could be improved. Les Brown, a writer for Variety magazine, saw Sesame Street as a "hope for a more substantial future" for television.
Other TV networks responded by making more high-quality children's shows. However, many people felt these were just small efforts to please critics. Even though the CTW was great at making a popular show, commercial TV networks didn't really try to copy CTW's methods. They didn't use a specific learning plan or check what children learned from their shows. Morrow reported that by the mid-1970s, commercial TV stopped trying to make better children's programs. Some critics also hoped that Sesame Street, which showed a working, multicultural community, would help young viewers learn to be more accepting of different people.
As critic Richard Roeper has said, one of the biggest signs of Sesame Street's influence is how long the stories and legends about the show and its characters, especially Bert and Ernie, have lasted.
