Sesame Street was a staple of my childhood. For a long time, my parents just had a basic cable TV package, so we watched a lot of Sesame Street, Lamb Chop’s Play Along and, for my younger sisters, Barney. Since its first season in 1969, the series has aired on public television, which made it accessible to millions of families like mine. However, funding issues led to PBS making a deal with HBO to exclusively release new episodes via HBO’s channel and streaming app. New episodes aired on PBS months later.
Late last year, HBO Max announced that they would not be renewing their contract with Sesame Street. Republicans have been coming for PBS and NPR for decades, most recently with attempts to defund them. So, it was really bad timing to lose the HBO deal. Have no fear, though! Netflix has ridden to the rescue! On Monday, Netflix and Sesame Street’s production company announced that they’d struck a pretty sweet deal that would save Big Bird’s home from potential cancellation. The deal includes a new format and new segments. Most importantly, it makes new eps of Sesame Street instantly accessible to all homes again.
Netflix is stepping in to save Sesame Street. The streaming giant has inked a deal with Sesame Workshop for new episodes of the long-running children’s show, just months after Warner Bros. Discovery opted not to renew its output deal for the program in a strategic shift at its streaming service Max (which will soon return to being HBO Max).
In a notable change from the HBO deal, new episodes of Sesame Street will also run day and date on PBS and the PBS Kids app, ensuring that they are easily accessible. Sesame Street has been available on PBS for more than 50 years, though during the HBO deal, the episodes debuted on PBS months after their HBO premieres.
“This unique public-private partnership will enable Sesame Workshop to bring our research-based curriculum to young children around the world with Netflix’s global reach, while ensuring children in communities across the U.S. continue to have free access on public television to the Sesame Street they love,” Sesame Workshop CEO Sherri Westin said in a statement.
“I strongly believe that our educational programming for children is one of the most important aspects of our service to the American people, and Sesame Street has been an integral part of that critical work for more than half a century,” added Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS. “We’re proud to continue our partnership in the pursuit of having a profound impact on the lives of children for years to come.”
The Netflix deal begins later this year with season 56 of the program. Season 56 will be reimagined, with the show dropping its magazine style format in favor of a longer segment, joined by a new animated element called Tales From 123. The new season will be released in three “batches,” Netflix says.
Sesame Workshop has been seeking a new home for the show since the HBO talks ended (some of the Sesame Street library will remain on HBO Max), and the nonprofit has faced a budget crunch, forcing layoffs earlier this year.
The deal with Netflix and PBS not only provides much needed financial stability for the non-profit (it is slated to host its annual fundraiser next week), but also provides expanded access to the program for free, an extremely unusual arrangement for Netflix.
This is great news, and I really hope that Sesame Street has found a long term home on Netflix via this deal. This feels like a rare occasion where everyone wins: Netflix gets to play hero (and a maybe nice tax write-off?), PBS gets some much-needed financial stability, and children get to continue learning from Sesame Street. I’m really glad that Netflix is going to allow the new episodes to air at the same time on PBS and the PBS Kids app. It was really sh-tty of HBO Max to force them to delay new episodes from airing on cable. This new deal covers the children whose parents are cord-cutters and who only get their television through streamers and apps and the children who rely on free public broadcasting. Like I said, everybody wins.
I have so many personal, fond memories of watching Sesame Street while growing up. Pretty sure I watched the one when Maria and Luis got married like 15 times. I also learned about death from the Mr. Cooper episode. It’s kinda crazy to realize that a show that taught me so much also taught my parents and my own kids so much. We must protect Sesame Street at all costs.
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I would love for Meghan – and Harry – to go on Sesame Street. It would be a classic!
I have so much love for Sesame Street. I taught Kindergarten years ago in a low income area. Many of the parents dropped their children off at school very early because they had to get to work. So those of us who could would get to school about 7 and open our classrooms. All my students were on free breakfast (those cafeteria ladies are unsung heroes) and the children could have a good, hot breakfast and then they would come to the classroom and watch Sesame Street until the bell rang. Many of the children didn’t speak English, and Sesame Street was my teaching partner in helping them learn the language. I am so grateful to Netflix for saving it!
You’re all heroes! What a lovely story.
It feels absolutely like the world is going to hell in a hand basket sometimes. This makes me so grateful to Netflix. I grew up in a rural area and didn’t have access to cable. We had the big 3 networks (ABC didn’t always come in though) and PBS. I watched Sesame Street, 3 2 1 Contact and the Electric Company every day of my childhood. It used to thrill me as a little kid to watch Mystery! reruns on weekends. I am not racist magat trash because of my exposure to PBS, which is why it is targeted by Project 2025. The magat trash doesn’t want us exposed to our actual history or rural folks exposed to positive images of people in urban settings. F#ck the Republicans. I have watched Mystery!, Masterpiece Theatre, Frontline, NOVA and Nature my entire adulthood. I get most of my news from PBS and NPR. I will stop what I am doing to watch anything featuring Lucy Worsley or any documentary by Ken Burns. Please donate to both NPR and PBS if you can.
That’s a very good point. PBS has always been there, free, for everyone. I worked at a local PBS affiliate a long time ago & I remember one of our big summer time series was some university classes (totally unnecessary now in the day of online learning). Not sure where I was going with this, but PBS has always provided quality programming free for everyone. And as you say, they’re available even in rural areas. Due to my work I’ve always lived out in the middle of nowhere in tiny towns–if ‘town’ is even the right word–but I could always get PBS on TV and NPR on my radio.
And I know it’s hard for some people to believe, but internet access is not available everywhere, but basic TV is. So yay for Netflix! May PBS & NPR continue!
It was good of Netflix to come in here.
I grew up on Sesame Street and have so much love for it. Happy it’s going to be on Netflix. I’m curious to know how today’s kids interact with it. The kids around me are very into Danny Go and things like Bebe Finn or Cocomelon. Which is all bizarre to me but randomly Danny Go puts my 1yr old nephew to sleep over anything else. I don’t get it, lol.
My first thought was how wonderful it would be for one of the Muppets to visit Meghan.
I’m confused. Are they calling Sesame Street a nonprofit? I know that they sell a lot of merchandise. So where does the money from that go?
“nonprofit” doesn’t mean that an organization can’t make money, it only means that revenue must be used for the organization’s purpose and expenses instead of going directly into investor or owner pockets. I used to work for a large healthcare organization that is nonprofit, but the execs make $$$$ (salaries are a business expense) – on the flip side, they sponsor a lot of community initiatives and provide lots of free health care.
If you want to read more specifically about how Sesame Street spends its money, you can read this:https://sesameworkshop.org/about-us/financials/
Thank you for this feel-good post, Rosie! About 40 years ago, my preschool bestie and I had a pissing contest… I told her I would be smarter since I attended preschool 3 days a week (MWF) and she attended only 2 days a week (TTh). She fired back that TTh preschool meant that she got to watch Sesame Street more often, so she “won” the argument. All these years later, we still laugh about that. Long live Sesame Street.
🙂 I love that! What a great argument!
Aw thanks, BeanieBean! She went to an Ivy League university for grad school, so clearly the time she spent learning from Sesame Street served her well. 🙂
I am happy they will show new episodes at the same time. IIRC HBO would stream new episodes first then lag behind a few weeks before PBS got them.
Sesame Street is a national treasure. It needs to go on forever. It’s what Mr. Hooper would have wanted.