The famous educational children's show Sesame Street will now be available in the premium cable channel HBO starting this Fall.
A deal was finalized between Sesame Workshop, creator of Sesame Street, and the administration of HBO. The merger of an educational show for children and a channel dedicated to adult viewers is quite unexpected.
"Sesame Street is a rare and iconic children's series in the history of television," says Michael Lombardo, HBO's president of programming. "I never say never but I can't think of any other show that we would be interested in bringing over from another network," said Lombardo.
The partnership that was announced on Thursday will greatly help the financially challenged Sesame Workshop. They can now make 35 episodes per year as opposed to their present limit of 18 episodes. They can now also create spinoff series based on Sesame Streets' muppets, along with another new educational series for children.
Sesame Street will be available exclusively on HBO for several months. After nine months, the popular educational series will be available for free in its home channel, Public Broadcasting Services (PBS), for 45 years.
"No other media company believes that disadvantaged kids deserve the same shot as middle-class kids, and that remains important to us," said Jeffrey D. Dunn, chief executive of Sesame Workshop. "We will have a couple of homes now. HBO will allow us to really capture the consumer shift, but we are not leaving linear TV," said the executive.
With the partnership of HBO and Sesame Street, experts fear the possible challenges that PBS will face in the future, now that its flagship program was snatched. Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center for Media and Child Health, said that the deal would starve PBS of public funding. "I am worried about the future of PBS," he said. "Not only is 'Sesame Street' currently a flagship property, but it may start a trend with other programming," said Rich.
