‘Sesame Street’ Heading To HBO, Episodes To Show On PBS After Initial Airing

Sesame Street will air first on HBO for the next five years – before airing months later on its longtime home at PBS – due to a new deal between Sesame Workshop and the premium cable network.

Sesame Street Heads To HBO

Sesame Workshop and HBO have reached a deal in which the next five seasons of Sesame Street will air on the network’s channel and appear on its streaming services. Nine months after episodes hit HBO, they will be made available for free on PBS. The deal kicks in for this coming fall.

The deal with HBO also means that the number of Sesame Street episodes put out per year will nearly double – going from just 18 to 35. In tandem with HBO, Sesame Workshop will develop a Sesame Street spinoff series as well as another children’s educational program.

“The partnership is really a great thing for kids,”  Sesame Workshop CEO Jeffrey Dunn told The New York Times. “We’re getting revenues we otherwise would not have gotten, and with this we can do even more content for kids.”

“The losses just kept getting bigger and bigger,” Dunn further explained to CNNMoney. “We were faced with no ability to make the show going forward.”

As for HBO, the network had been interested in stepping further into the children’s entertainment market when it learned that Sesame Workshop was looking to make a deal to keep Sesame Street afloat.

“We were instantly thrilled for the opportunity to bring an iconic series like ‘Sesame Street’ to HBO,” Richard Plepler, chief executive of HBO, told The Times. “‘Sesame Street’ stands for excellence and quality in children’s programming, and we stand for excellence and quality in all programming. If we are going to lean into that and start to do more, we want to associate ourselves with a brand that is consummate to ourselves.”