Family friendly, educational, kids show? Gotta be HBO.
The Emmy-winning Sesame Street is beginning a new partnership with HBO that will ease the struggle it’s been feeling trying to keep up a heavy production schedule during a time of dwindling revenues and Mitt Romney wanting to fire Big Bird. The collaboration brings the ability to produce twice as many new episodes per season.
The show has been airing since 1969 and over 6 million children across 150 countries watch each week.
Sesame Workshop’s CEO Jeffrey Dunn made a public statement about the “public-private partnership model.” From NY Daily News:
“It provides Sesame Workshop with the critical funding it needs to be able to continue production of Sesame Street and secure its nonprofit mission of helping kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder.”…
Even the show’s co-founder hailed the deal. “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,” said Joan Ganz Cooney.
“In order to fund our nonprofit mission with a sustainable business model, Sesame Workshop must recognize these changes and adapt to the times.”
The episodes are set to air on HBO nine months before reaching PBS viewers.
Episodes are also being shortened, unrelated to the HBO partnership, but due to research and “positive station and viewer feedback” during trial shortening.
Not surprisingly, the switchover to HBO has turned many to social media.
@sesamestreet @RottenTomatoes @HBO @PBS So, sesame street is now pay tv. I'm glad my child is a teen so he won't know Big Bird sold out!
— Jill MacCartney (@kneeddough) August 13, 2015
Maybe Big Bird was just looking for better opportunities after he heard news of his proposed firing. Capitalism is a bitch.
I’m sure you were donating to your local public broadcasting station, Komosa. It’s gonna really suck to have to explain to your toddlers they’re going to have to wait to see new episodes for Sesame Street… oh wait, they have no concept and will watch the same 5 episodes over and over… this is about you.
@hairyasian @sesamestreet @HBO @PBS @CNBCnow I could never afford or want cable— give the wealthy sesame street and yank it from us?
— Kelly Inman (@BlueUpali) August 13, 2015
Ohh Kelly, because you don’t make enough money to enjoy capitalism! Isn’t it funny Sesame Street was created to help the impoverished during the 1960’s War on Poverty. To clarify, that is a war fighting poverty and not a war fighting the poor, you’d think I wouldn’t need to clarify this but, you know. Ah, the decade where the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio, and PBS all began. Funnily enough, Sesame Street was created to help low-income kids be able to stay educationally similar with their more affluent peers and it worked. So breaking it down, a program that launched to help children in poverty keep up with their privileged counterparts is now moving to a pay network, so those rich kids can watch it before the poor kids.
On the positive side, impoverished kids today will know wayyyy more about capitalism than their affluent counterparts, they just won’t have the alphabetic or numerical skills to do anything with that information, well, until 9 months later.
Additionally, its new funding is allowing Sesame Workshop to produce a spin-off series Sesame Street Muppet. New HBO episodes will begin airing as early as late fall 2015.
Now the question can be answered, “Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?” “Yes, just through the paywall, past the sexually explicit, drug-filled, often violent, dramas, where it belongs.” Ohh that does not have the same ring to it.