This is Sesame Streets 46th season on air and they are celebrating by posting their season opening episode for free on Facebook (for a limited time). Yes, you read that correctly: for FREE. Why for free you ask? When did they start charging to watch a non-profit, educational children’s show? Well, Sesame Street has partnered with HBO for a 5 year contract to air their new episodes (plus 150 past episodes). Sesame Workshop executives have cited that the partnership will aid in the financial responsibilities to boost production (from 18 to 35 shows per year) as well as to create other educational spin-off shows. The segments will now be 30 minutes long opposed to an hour and will be available to PBS after airing on HBO for 9 months. The older episodes will still be available on the PBS channel and for streaming on PBSkids.org, however Sesame Street will no longer be available on Netflix nor Amazon.
The show will be doing parody’s on real life events and even adult HBO shows (i.e. Game of Thrones). Do you think this will impact the integrity of the show now that HBO is writing the check? Will you be purchasing the HBO channel or HBO Now (streaming without cable) for your kids to watch Sesame Street? Let me know! Leave a comment below.
Mommy Can Learn 