‘Sesame Street’ Headed to HBO in New 5-Year Deal

Sunny days are ahead for HBO, with the network announcing they’ve entered into a 5-year partnership with classic children’s show Sesame Street.

The long-running series is partnering up with cable giant HBO in a new deal that that will make the next five seasons of the series available on HBO and its multiplex channels, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and the new internet-only SVOD service HBO NOW.

An additional win for Sesame Street is that the deal leaves room for the series to produce almost twice as much new content as previous seasons, and for the first time ever, make the show available free of charge to PBS and its member stations after a nine-month window.

“Our new partnership with HBO represents a true winning public-private partnership model,” said Jeffrey D. Dunn, Sesame Workshop’s CEO. “It provides Sesame Workshop with the critical funding it needs to be able to continue production of Sesame Street and secure its nonprofit mission of helping kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder; it gives HBO exclusive pay cable and SVOD access to the nation’s most important and historic educational programming; and it allows Sesame Street to continue to air on PBS and reach all children, as it has for the past 45 years.”

Along with the next five seasons of Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop will produce a Sesame Street Muppet™ spinoff series, as well as develop a new original educational series for children.

The new Sesame Street episodes will begin airing as early as late fall 2015.

Photo Credit: Sesame Workshop