Sesame Street extending to Gulf

The regional version of Sesame Street is being developed with the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States and would be accompanied by an educational curriculum. Mary Altaffer / AP Photo

As Big Bird flies into political turmoil in the United States, a regional version of Sesame Street is set to hit the airwaves in the Arabian Gulf, executives said at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit.

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organisation that owns the programme, said yesterday that a regional version would launch soon.

"We are in discussions to bring back a new version of Sesame Street in the Gulf," said Robert Knezevic, the vice president for international at Sesame Workshop.

The show was being developed with the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States and would be accompanied by an educational curriculum, said Mr Knezevic.

An Arabic version of Sesame Street entitled Iftah Ya Simsim was first broadcast in the late 1970s, and localised versions of the show have more recently appeared in Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

Local versions of Sesame Street have been made in about 30 countries, and Mr Knezevic said the approach was to tailor the show according to different societies.

Sesame Street has in recent days become an unlikely front in the battle for the White House.

The Republican nominee Mitt Romney said last week he would end the subsidy to the Public Broadcasting Service, which in turn supports Sesame Street.

The campaign of the president Barack Obama responded by releasing an advertisement featuring Big Bird and mocking Mr Romney's suggestion that the character was a symbol of unnecessary government spending.

Melvin Ming, the president and chief executive of Sesame Workshop, yesterdaytold the Abu Dhabi Media Summit that he had asked the Obama campaign to stop using the Big Bird image.

He made the case for more public funding of broadcasting.

"We're seeing an outpouring of support for the institution of public broadcasting," he said.

Mr Ming was due to be in the UAE personally to address the Abu Dhabi Media Summit. Instead, he appeared at the summit via video link, unable to travel to Abu Dhabi because of the political storm.

"I could not come because I could not get permission from Big Bird to go to the most spectacular city on the planet," he joked. "[Big Bird] is used to attention, but not to this extent."