“Sesame Street” to Air on HBO

HBO is known for skewing to a mature demographic, with explicit shows like Game of Thrones and Sex and the City. Now they’re using their parents’ smartphones and tablets.

“There was no way they could step up and make that gap up”, Dunn said. The show will also appear for free on PBS, where it has run for the last 45 years, after completing nine months on HBO.

Sesame Workshop will also produce a “Muppets” spinoff series and develop a new original educational series for children for HBO, which has licensed more than 150 library episodes of Sesame Street. An additional educational series will also be developed, the companies said.

“I wonder which of my favorite characters is going to die first on HBO’s Sesame Street“.

He concedes that Sesame Workshop are doing the right thing “by finding a way to keep a valuable institution vital”.

Here are more details about the deal.

Though it receives little in the way of taxpayer money, one could nearly think of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop as a modern-day Works Progress Administration (WPA), enlisting filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians, songwriters and other artists to build a creative public utility. About two-thirds of children now watch “Sesame Street” on demand and do not tune in to PBS to watch the show.

PBS is a non-profit organization that aims to provide shows that will help children grow to become the best people they can be. “We’re standing by our community”.

PBS spokeswoman Anne Bentley insisted the new deal ” does not change the fundamental role PBS and stations play in the lives of families. PBS will be airing older episodes of the show during the upcoming fall season. HBO was just looking for programming in general then, but now post-Fraggle Rock it needs something for the kids to compete with all the other streaming services competing for mommy or daddy’s subscription dollars.

While dwindling government and foundation funding led to commercial-free Sesame Street’s decision in 1998 to accept corporate sponsorship, it still struggled, yet survived.

According to a study on Sesame Street released in June by the University of Maryland’s Melissa Kearney and Wellesley College’s Phillip Levine, kids of preschool age with greater access to the show in its early days, starting in 1969, were much more likely to be at the grade level appropriate for their age through school.