Providing Market Intelligence for 40 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

About 20% of U.S. broadband households get live TV through an antenna, Parks Associates says

The percentage of U.S. broadband households that use digital antennas in their homes increased to 20% near the end of 2017, up from 16% in early 2015, according to Parks Associates. "Increasingly,...

CNET's Next Big Thing: Will our homes remain our headquarters?

To pick apart where at-home behavior works and where it doesn't, I assembled three of the smartest people in tech to sort this out in CNET's Next Big Thing presentation at CES 2021: Jennifer Kent, sen...

The probability of success for ESPN+

Parks Associates analyst Brett Sappington agreed that it will be compelling for some customers, particularly due to content that won’t be available elsewhere like MLS games and some of the college spo...

Why your Rokus and Fire TVs are missing those big, new streaming apps

Most people assume all the big streaming services will be at the ready to download and watch on their streaming device. And up until this year, that was fairly true. People who bought a Roku or an Ama...