It looks like Apple is having a sunny day and sweeping the clouds away, as it has just given a multi-series order to Emmy Award-winning non-profit media and educational organization Sesame Workshop for a slate of children’s programs, a person with knowledge of production tells TheWrap.
This marks Apple’s first foray into children’s programming since it began ordering TV content.
The producer’s long-running “Sesame Street” is not part of the pact, as the program is currently airing on HBO under a five-year deal that runs through 2020.
Under the partnership, Sesame Workshop — led by President, Media & Education and Chief Operating Officer Steve Youngwood — will draw on its 50 years of expertise creating children’s programming to produce live-action and animated series and to develop a puppet series for Apple. The nonprofit educational organization has a presence in over 160 countries, with a mission to “help kids everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.”
This order is the most recent in a string of projects picked up by the tech giant. Apple has ordered three projects from Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine banner, an immigrant anthology series from “The Big Sick” writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, the J.J. Abrams and Sara Bareilles’ dramedy “Little Voice,” the Hailee Steinfeld-led comedy about Emily Dickinson, Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories,” Ron Moore’s space drama, the series “See” from Steven Knight and Francis Lawrence, and the docuseries “Home” from Matt Tyrnauer and Matthew Weaver. And that’s not even the entire list.
What remains unclear, as Apple continues its aggressive push to acquire original programming, is how exactly the company plans to eventually roll out this rapidly growing slate of shows.