‘STREET’ SMARTS
The Sesame gang’s moving to HBO, and that’s a good thing
This column is brought to you by the letters: R.E.L.A.X. There’s so much anger on the (Sesame) Street about the beloved kids show being cut to a half-hour and moving to HBO. But critics of the moves are missing the point.
This radical change is actually a really good thing for “Sesame Street” because more people will get to watch it.
In a nutshell, the 45-yearold show featuring beloved characters like Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie Monster will offer new, half-hour long episodes on HBO exclusively for nine months. The show will continue to air repeats on PBS.
As a fan of the show for nearly all four decades that it’s been on, and now as the father of small children who watch, I know that kids view “Sesame Street” very differently than they once did.
With thousands of potential entertainment options (and substantial parental guidance), kids have much more control over what they watch. Many times they opt for watching short videos from “Sesame Street” and similar programs online.
When it comes to television, young people (and older ones too) often devote far less than an hour to a single episode — because there are so many other things to see. Most of these “Sesame” segments air for about a half-hour, or even less.
While my report here wouldn’t be considered scientific research, the makers of “Sesame Street” invested a great deal of time and money exploring kids’ viewing habits. They have found enough evidence to change the fundamental way they package and distribute their program.
Officials at Sesame Workshop, the company behind the show, said Thursday that the decision to change the length of episodes of the iconic series, which premiered in 1969, was reached through “thorough research and consideration.”
Among that research: PBS tested out the half-hour episodes last September on weekday afternoons, even as the longer version aired weekday mornings. What Sesame leaders found was that the half-hour format drew more kiddie viewers — and held them far longer than the hour-long version.
There may also be other, more politically-based reasoning behind the shift.
For years, PBS has been the target of budget-busting politicians who say funding the public broadcasting system is a waste of taxpayer dollars. In truth, the money that goes to PBS each year makes up less than .01 percent of the entire U.S. budget. That’s according to famed astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who is unsurprisingly a PBS booster. By turning to HBO, the Sesame Workshop is finding a solid, natural revenue stream.
Other critics last week feared that by putting “Sesame Street” behind a premium channel pay wall — HBO is not free like PBS — the multitudes will no longer have free access to the show. But it remains likely that “Sesame Street” will always be on PBS in some form. HBO will have new episodes first, but there are already decades’ worth of existing “Sesame Street” material for PBS.
This is a smart move. You don’t even know your ABCs or 123s to figure that out.