Organization behind ‘Sesame Street’ laying off staff

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the classic children’s show “Sesame Street,” will part ways with staffers just months after Warner Bros. Discovery announced it was ending its partnership with the organization.

The organization is expected to “downsize significantly,” according to a memo from CEO Sherrie Rollins Westin sent to staff Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

It was not immediately clear how many people would be laid off. 

“Amid the changing media and funding landscape, we have made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our organization,” a Sesame Workshop spokesperson told NPR. 

The cuts come after a December 2024 announcement that WBD would exit a deal with Sesame Workshop that had first-run episodes of the show airing on its streamer Max.

Essentially, WBD was helping to fund the production of Sesame Street in exchange for an exclusive streaming window before the episodes aired on PBS member stations nationwide. Later, “Sesame Street” episodes were made available to member stations at no cost.

At the time the end of the deal was announced, WBD said the program did not align with its current streaming programming goals and strategy.

Sesame Workshop had indicated it hoped to find another funding partner, but no announcement has been made. As of now, it appears production of the show’s 56th season will begin sometime in April 2025, though it is not clear how the layoffs might affect that schedule.

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Sesame Workshop may be able to proceed with production after cutting its payroll, though it did not comment on that matter. 

The layoffs come just one day after 200 of its employees have requested the organization recognize a union organization effort. Parts of the organization’s staff, including puppeteers, cast members, studio crew and writers are already unionized. 

The organization could  also move forward under a model where stations pay for the rights to air the show, though such a shift was not mentioned in the announcement. 

The challenge with that approach, however, is that PBS stations, already often underfunded, have become the target of Donald Trump and his DOGE team. 

PBS and NPR have long been targeted by Republicans and, largely under the direction of Elon Musk, funding is likely to be significantly affected.

Trump’s FCC commissioner has also launched investigations into both organizations, alleging, with little merit, that the broadcaster’s stations are violating the terms of their non-commercial licenses by airing underwriting announcements acknowledging corporate and non-profit funding partners. Non-commercial stations are legally allowed to air such content as long as there is not a clear call to action.

Although many PBS stations bring in a good chunk of their revenue from local donations, as opposed to funding from the Trump-targeted public corporation known as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps distribute federal dollars to both NPR and PBS stations, it’s possible that the overall net result of the federal cuts could make it harder for stations to fund programming, including “Sesame Street.”

In many cases, the federal dollars CPB does distribute help stations with less revenue from donations and local partners meet their fiscal needs. 

Although Sesame Workshop only receives about 4% of its operating budget from the federal government, those cuts and the end of the WBD deal have left a sizable dent in the organization’s financials.