In fact, HBO’s well-known creative work-gritty and explicit dramas such as “Game of Thrones”, “The Wire“, “The Sopranos“, and “Sex and the City“-has not been considered as child-friendly as the entirely cheerful and wholesome “Sesame Street”.
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All the episodes of classic Sesame Street will continue to appear on US public broadcaster PBS nine months after their HBO debut.
Sesame Workshop will also start working on a new Muppet spin-off of its main Sesame Street series, in addition to developing a brand-new (and unnamed) children’s educational series.
The five-year deal will allow Sesame Workshop to produce more episodes (up from 18 to 35 a season) and to expand its puppet-related kids content with new shows and spin-offs.
Promising a win-win for kids and quality children’s programming, HBO, the nonprofit Sesame Workshop and PBS have announced that new Sesame Street episodes will move to HBO and its streaming service HBO GO this fall.
The next five seasons of “Sesame Street” will be on HBO.
“The ability to extend its franchise, extend its brand and in particular get that type of funding from a private source is just enormously important for them”, says Jeffrey Jones, a University of Georgia professor who directs the Peabody Awards, which have honored Sesame Street and many HBO programs over the years. Up until now, the show was largely funded through licensing revenue, such as DVD sales; PBS was only responsible for 10% of its budget, according to the New York Times.
One of the newer key players in children’s programming has been competitors like Amazon and Netflix that are also making their own original shows with access to streaming them on demand. HBO has licensed more than 150 library episodes of the show, and new episodes should begin arriving as soon as fall of this year.
“HBO Chairman and CEO Richard Plepler and HBO programming president Michael Lombardo said in a statement that the network is “[A]bsolutely thrilled to help secure the future of “Sesame Street” and Sesame Workshop’s mission. The merger of an educational show for children and a channel dedicated to adult viewers is quite unexpected. Indeed, about two-thirds of kids now experience Sesame Street via on-demand and are not tuning into to watch the show on PBS.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
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“In order to fund our nonprofit mission with a sustainable business model, Sesame Workshop must recognize these changes and adapt to the times”, adds Sesame Street co-founder Joan Ganz Cooney.
