‘Sesame Street’ shrinks to half-hour as Sesame Workshop strikes deal with HBO

There’s some good news and bad news for fans of Sesame Street. The good news is that there will be more places to watch the show, but the bad news is that there will be less of a show to watch on PBS.

Sesame Workshop, which produces the beloved series, announced a deal with HBO this morning, which will allow the premium cable network to broadcast the next five seasons of Sesame Street. HBO Go, HBO Now and HBO On Demand will be exclusive home of new Sesame Street episodes in a nine-month window. At that point, they will be available to air on Sesame Street’s traditional home of PBS.

“Our new partnership with HBO represents a true winning public-private partnership model,” Jeffrey D. Dunn, Sesame Workshop’s CEO, 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.”

While HBO will broadened Sesame Street’s reach, the upcoming season of the 45-year-old show will be noticeably different on PBS. PBS KIDS spokeswoman Maria Vera revealed to The New York Daily News that episodes will be cut from an hour to just 30 minutes. The shorter episodes will start on Nov. 16 at 10 a.m.

With that announcement, plus the new deal with HBO, there could be some concern that the show is nearing its end. But PBS quickly issued a statement after the HBO deal was announced to calm those fears.

“Sesame Workshop’s new partnership does not change the fundamental role PBS and stations play in the lives of families. Sesame Street will continue to air on PBS stations as part of the PBS KIDS service, building on a 45-year history,” the network said.

Part of the HBO deal includes over 150 past episodes of Sesame Street and the new episodes could air on HBO as well by this fall. The HBO deal will also allow Sesame Workshop to produce more content, including shows that aren’t Sesame Street.