Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

A Muppet always pays his debts – Sesame Street finds new home behind paywall

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street, announced a programming deal that will send Sesame Street from its longtime publicly-subsidized home on PBS to the corporate Time Warner-owned home of Westeros on HBO. According to a press release from Sesame Workshop, the deal includes:

  • a five-year order of 35 episodes per season (nearly twice its current 18 episodes per season);
  • 150 library episodes;
  • a muppet-based spinoff series;
  • an additional educational series;
  • library episodes from Sesame Workshop-produced shows Pinky Dinky Doo; and,
  • 2009 reboot of the 1970s educational series The Electric Company.

New episodes of Sesame Street will begin airing on HBO as early as this fall.

Exact financial details of the agreement were not immediately released. On the surface, this looked like a surprise move. After all, aside from movies, HBO is known primarily for its adult-themed programs like Game of Thrones, The Wire, Girls, and True Detective because FCC governance is less strict on premium television. However, the move benefits both Sesame Workshop and HBO.

From the article "A Muppet always pays his debts – Sesame Street finds new home behind paywall" by Glenn Hower.

Previously In The News

Report: Pay-TV Subscriptions to Drop 27% by 2024; Streaming Apps to Pick Up the Slack

Pay-TV services are showing their age as subscribership continues to fall, leading to a projected 76.7 million subscriber decrease by 2024, according to a report by Parks Associates. This drop wou...

Study Explains Why Facebook Needs To Work Faster To Stop The Flow Of Fake News

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published his manifesto outlining the company’s ongoing commitment to filter out false news and hoaxes without undermining free speech, the findings from a new study by...

Most Broadband Users Still Pay For Television

Fortunately for pay-television providers, Kelling is not alone in what the industry calls “over-the-top” video consumption. According to the market research firm Parks Associates, 81 percent of U.S. h...

Percentage Of TV Antenna Households Doubles

The percentage of U.S. homes getting live TV channels through antenna has nearly doubled since 2013, to 15 percent of homes in 2016, according to Parks & Associates. Several factors contributed to the...