The long-running children's show will carry on HBO after signing a five-year partnership with the premium cable channel.
- Aug 13, 2015
AceShowbiz - "Sesame Street" is moving to HBO. Sesame Workshop, the group behind the long-running children's show, has announced a five-year partnership with HBO. The deal allows the group to produce almost twice as much new content as previous seasons.
Jeffrey D. Dunn, Sesame Workshop's CEO, said that the partnership "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."
The nonprofit educational organization is now expected to create 35 new "Sesame Street" episodes a year for the next five seasons, nearly double the 18 they usually produced. The new episodes are set to begin airing as early as late fall 2015 on HBO.
The Emmy-winning show will still be available on PBS, its home for the last 45 years. After nine months of running exclusively on the premium cable channel and its streaming services, the children's program will appear on their traditional home for free.
Sesame Workshop will also produce a "Sesame Street Muppet" spinoff series and develop a new original educational series for children. On top of that, HBO will license approximately 50 past episodes of two other children's series "Pinky Dinky Doo" and "The Electric Company".
"We are absolutely thrilled to help secure the future of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop's mission for the nation's kids and families," said Richard Plepler, Chairman and CEO of HBO, and Michael Lombardo, President, HBO Programming. "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."
