Sesame Street, facing crisis, signs new deal with Netflix
Production of an episode of Sesame Street at the Kaufman Studios in the Astoria neighbourhood of Queens, New York on Oct 12, 2018. PHOTO: JONAH MARKOWITZ/NYTIMES
NEW YORK - After many difficult months, Sesame Street has a moment to celebrate. Sesame Street, the 56-year-old institution of children's television, has signed a new distribution deal with Netflix, as well as a separate deal with US public broadcaster PBS, the show announced May 19.
That means new episodes of Sesame Street will now be available to the more than 300 million subscribers of Netflix, giving it significantly more reach than in the past. New episodes will also be available on PBS the day they are released on Netflix, the first time in roughly a decade that the public broadcaster will have access to brand-new Sesame Street content. The new agreements will go into effect later 2025.
The deal is a much-needed shot in the arm for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces Sesame Street and has been in the throes of a financial crisis. Sesame Workshop laid off about 20 per cent of its staff this year after several grants dried up, and, more significantly, it confronted a significant loss in revenue with the expiration of its current distribution deal, a lucrative contract with HBO.
Since 2015, HBO has paid Sesame Workshop US$30 million to US$35 million (S$39 million to S$45 million) a year for new episodes of Sesame Street, The New York Times reported. But Warner Bros Discovery, HBO's parent company, is letting that deal expire as it turns away from children's content and faces financial challenges of its own.
It was not immediately clear how much Netflix paid to distribute the show. But Sesame Workshop executives have warned employees for months that any new distribution agreements would bring in significantly less revenue than the old HBO deal.
In a note to staff, Mr Sherrie Westin, CEO of Sesame Workshop, said that it was 'certainly worth celebrating' that the show will be available in many more households going forward.
But, she added, 'we will also have to find additional new ways to sustain our work, as the economics of these agreements are vastly different than those of the past, given the drastic market and media landscape shifts in recent years.' NYTIMES
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