Sesame Street meets The Wire?
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In an historic move binding TV’s most iconic children’s series with one of culture’s most (if not the most) significant arbiters, “Sesame Street” is going to HBO this fall, as part of a five-year agreement that will keep first-run episodes of the series away from public TV for nine months.
The rest was provided by Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization once known as Children’s Television Workshop, and that money was typically secured through licensing, of course, but also from revenues associated with the sale of DVDs.
Those new episodes of “Sesame Street” will continue to be available to PBS and its member stations, which have considered the show a mainstay of their schedules since it debuted in November 1969.
The new episodes will begin airing as early as late fall 2015.
Although “Sesame Street” has historically been associated with the public broadcaster, less than 10 percent of its funding coming from PBS.
“This partnership is really a great thing for kids”, Jeffrey Dunn, the chief executive of Sesame Workshop, told The Times. The deal will premiere “Sesame Street” episodes first on HBO, HBO GO, HBO NOW and HBO On Demand before bringing them to PBS.
Under a new partnership announced Thursday by Sesame Workshop and HBO, the premium cable channel will carry the next five seasons of “Sesame Street” on HBO and its related platforms.
HBO’s streaming service, HBO Now, just became a must have for parents, who can afford it.
Sesame Workshop officials said it will be able to produce nearly twice as much new content as in previous seasons through the HBO deal. There will also be a spin-off series. “Sesame Street will continue to air on PBS stations as part of the PBS KIDS service, building on a 45-year history”, the network said. “We are delighted to be a home for this extraordinary show, helping Sesame Street expand and build its franchise”.
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“I’ve long admired the creative work of HBO and can’t think of a better partner to continue the quality of “Sesame Street’s” programming”, says Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of “Sesame Street“. “Over the past decade, both the way in which children are consuming video and the economics of the children’s television production business have changed dramatically”.
