Big Bird will have a new home at HBO for the next five years.
The premium cable network has partnered with Sesame Workshop — the nonprofit educational organization behind “Sesame Street” — to air the next fives seasons of the children’s series on HBO, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and HBO NOW.
New episodes will begin to air as early as late fall 2015, HBO announced on Thursday, and those episodes will become available free of charge to PBS after a nine-month window.
In addition to 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.
“Our new partnership with HBO represents a true winning public-private partnership model,” Sesame Workshop’s CEO Jeffrey D. Dunn said in a statement. “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.”
“We are absolutely thrilled to help secure the future of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop’s mission for the nation’s kids and families,” HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler said in a joint statement with the network’s president of programming, Michael Lombardo. “Home Box Office is committed to bringing the most groundbreaking and creative shows to its audience. Sesame Street is the most important preschool education program in the history of television. We are delighted to be a home for this extraordinary show, helping Sesame Street expand and build its franchise.”