the CTW was "exploiting impressionable children." In 2015, in response to funding challenges, it was announced that premium television service HBO would air first-run episodes of Sesame Street. Steve Youngwood, SW's Chief Operating Officer, called the move "one of the toughest decisions we ever made." According to The New York Times, the move "drew an immediate backlash." Critics claimed that it favored privileged children over less-advantaged children and their families, the original focus of the show. They also criticized choosing to air first-run episodes on HBO, a network with adult dramas and comedies. Production Research Producer Joan Ganz Cooney has stated, "Without research, there would be no Sesame Street." In 1967, when she and her team began planning the show's development, combining research with television production was, as she put it, "positively heretical." Its producers soon began developing what came to be called the CTW Model, a system of planning, production and evaluation that did not fully emerge until the end of the show's first season. According to Morrow, the Model consisted of four parts: "the interaction of receptive television producers and child science experts, the creation of a specific and age-appropriate curriculum, research to shape the program directly, and independent measurement of viewers' learning." Cooney credited the show's high standard in research procedures to Harvard professors Gerald S. Lesser, whom CTW hired to design its educational objectives; and Edward L. Palmer, who conducted the show's formative research and bridged the gap between producers and researchers. CTW conducted research in two ways: in-house formative research that informed and improved production; and independent summative evaluations, conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) during the first two seasons, which measured its educational effectiveness. Cooney said, "From the beginning, we—the planners of the project—designed the show as an experimental research project with educational advisers, researchers, and television producers collaborating as equal partners." She characterized the collaboration as an "arranged marriage." Writing Sesame Street has used many writers in its long history. As Peter Hellman wrote in his 1987 article in New York Magazine, "The show, of course, depends upon its writers, and it isn't easy to find adults who could identify the interest level of a pre-schooler." Fifteen writers a year worked on the show's scripts, but very few lasted longer than one season. Norman Stiles, head writer in 1987, reported that most writers would "burn out" after writing about a dozen scripts.