Ban and Bother

Abstract

Abstract This chapter deals with the Children’s Television Workshop’s efforts to sell Sesame Street to Britain. It shows that the Workshop was extremely interested in selling to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) due to its important position in the European broadcasting landscape. However, this failed because the BBC already had a long and very different tradition of producing children’s television. Importantly, the BBC’s views of childhood, education, and television production culture differed greatly from the Workshop’s. The chapter also explains how and why Sesame Street ended up being broadcast on the commercial Independent Television network. Based on an analysis of meetings, production of preschool television, personal networks, and British broadcasting culture, the chapter shows why the question of Sesame Street in Britain turned into a massive cultural conflict in 1971 that became a complex issue to resolve.