“Sesame Street” has had funding issues in recent years, so perhaps this makes sense. Yesterday, it was announced that the show would be moving from PBS to HBO for the next five seasons. But, it’s also staying on PBS.
Here’s how it’ll work: HBO will exclusively air new episodes and then after a nine-month window, PBS will be able to air those episodes for free. Now both HBO and PBS have the rights to re-air old episodes from the show’s library.
Obviously, it isn’t expected to change much on HBO — so it won’t suddenly become an adult drama or a bloody thriller. HBO will air twice as many episodes per season as PBS was of late, but it’ll be cut from an hour to a half-hour.
PBS made the deal because they were struggling to find the money to keep the show going — and HBO did it because they’re facing increased competition from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, who have ramped up their kid-friendly programming.
Since most kids watch “Sesame Street” on-demand these days, HBO will have it available on their streaming platform, HBO Go.