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

How fuboTV Plans to ‘Expand the Breadth of Sports’ to their Live TV Streaming Service

There are 75 million people in the US who have an MVPD service and based on the most recent Parks Associates report, 43% of cable TV households will likely switch to a virtual MVPD streaming service....

Cord cutting to carve $33.6B out of U.S. pay TV revenues by 2025

According to recent Parks Associates’ research, more than one-third of U.S. broadband households are cord-cutters who previously subscribed to traditional pay TV. That comes out to more than 38 millio...

63% Of Americans Unfamiliar With Virtual Reality; Less Than 6% Plan On Buying A Headset Soon

Despite 2016 seeing virtual reality break into the mainstream market, headset manufacturers such as Sony, Oculus and HTC still have a lot of work to do in order to educate the masses, according to a n...

Netflix Challengers: Are There Flies in the Ointment?

Parks Associates estimates that over the past five years, the number of SVOD services has more than doubled, to 271. And projections are that subscription streaming will grow at a faster clip than any...