HBO Partners with Sesame Street For New Seasons and Spin-off

Friendly neighbors there, that’s where we meet? HBO and Sesame Street are partnering to bring the next five seasons of the show. MUPPETS UNCENSORED. Just kidding, don’t make this weird, HBO has a family category where Sesame Street will presumably join shows like HBO Storybook and Crashbox. Maybe they’ll hang out with those puppets from John Oliver’s show!

HBO has licensed over 150 library hours of the show and will be the exclusive distribution partner with the right to air the show in English and Spanish. Sesame Workshop CEO Jeffrey D. Dunn says:

Our new partnership with HBO represents a true winning public-private partnership model. 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.

HBO CEO Richard Plepler and HBO Programming president Michael Lombardo also commented:

We are absolutely thrilled to help secure the future of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop’s mission for the nation’s kids and families. Home Box Office is committed to bringing the most groundbreaking and creative shows to its audience. Sesame Street is the most important preschool education program in the history of television. We are delighted to be a home for this extraordinary show, helping Sesame Street expand and build its franchise.

The partnership also includes an HBO produced spinoff Sesame Street Muppet series, and an original educational series. They will appear first on HBO and be made available on PBS after a nine-month window. The new episodes will begin airing in late fall on HBO’s linear and on-demand channels, HBO Go, and HBO Now.

While Sesame Street will still be on PBS, a downside of the partnership is that new episodes of the show, which promotes learning and literacy, will become a lot less accessible to those who don’t have or can’t afford HBO.

What do you think of the partnership?

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

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