HBO's modern portfolio has hinged largely on big-ticket series for grown-ups, leaving behind the premium cable network's reputation for children's programming that it had built in the '80s and '90s. A Thursday announcement saw the network playing catch-up on the family-friendly side in a big way, as HBO and Sesame Workshop announced a huge, five-season partnership that will dramatically change Sesame Street's network and online existence.
The deal's biggest component is a complete restructuring of how Sesame Workshop will fund and air first-run episodes. HBO will enjoy exclusive rights to new Sesame Street episodes for nine months, and after that, the episodes will become free for PBS stations to air. HBO will also get exclusive rights to two new Sesame Workshop series; one of those will be a Muppet-driven spinoff (if we had our way: a Wire crossover series starring Oscar the Grouch in Hamsterdam, or a Curb Your Enthusiasm-style, single-camera show that follows Bert and Ernie), and the other will be an as-yet-undetermined educational series.
The official press release mentions that most Sesame episodes, including new ones and "over 150 library episodes," will also stream on the HBO Go and HBO Now services, while a New York Times report goes one further, confirming that the deal means both Netflix and Amazon will lose streaming access to the series. However, neither that announcement nor other reports have confirmed what will happen to Sesame Street access via the free PBS Kids Video app, nor when the streaming changes will take effect; we have asked Sesame Workshop to comment.
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