Sesame Street; a blow for the 47%

[FloFTW]

(This is not just the news release; it's an opinion piece.)

www.vulture.com/2015/08/sesame-street-hbo-mitt-romney-wins.html?mid=fb-share-vulture

Bert and Ernie are moving to a ritzy new neighborhood: HBO. The unambiguously awesome duo, along with the rest of the gang from Sesame Street, are headed to the pay-cable giant later this year as part of a potentially landmark five-year deal designed to help HBO counter the growing threat from premium competitors Netflix and Amazon. Under the agreement, HBO will become the exclusive home for first-run episodes of Sesame Street, airing the show — in English and Spanish — on its linear channel as well as via HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO on Demand. Kids whose parents can’t afford HBO won’t be cut off entirely, however. HBO will let PBS and its stations air reruns of the most recent Sesame Street seasons nine months after they debut on HBO. But the agreement also clearly establishes a new, Downton Abbey–style class system for Sesame Street: Middle- and upper-class kids get the benefit of the latest Sesame Street lessons first, while poorer children will now be nine months behind their financially better-off peers.

Not surprisingly, Sesame Street producer Sesame Workshop* and HBO put a positive spin on their pact. According to the two companies, the upside of the deal is that PBS stations will now get episodes of Sesame Street for free, while Sesame Workshop will “be able to produce almost twice as much new content as previous seasons” for the show. Jeffrey Dunn, CEO of Sesame Workshop, said the deal “represents a true winning public-private partnership model. It provides Sesame Workshop with the critical funding it needs to be able to continue production of Sesame Street … 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.” A press release from HBO also included a quote from Sesame Street co-founder (and unassailable kids’ TV icon) Joan Ganz Cooney in which she puts the best face on the move. “Over the past decade, both the way in which children are consuming video and the economics of the children’s television production business have changed dramatically,” Cooney said. “In order to fund our nonprofit mission with a sustainable business model, Sesame Workshop must recognize these changes and adapt to the times.” Translation: With a Republican Congress threatening to cut off funding for PBS, this deal was probably the best way to ensure the near-term future of Sesame Street.

HBO similarly sought to paint the agreement as a public service, issuing a statement that began by stating its happiness at being able to “secure the future of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop’s mission for the nation’s kids and families.” The massively profitable network, of course, also had another motive for the deal: It wants to make sure parents looking for programming options for their kids consider HBO a must-have service. Streaming rivals Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon have both made catering to kids a major priority, citing data showing young folks stream early and often. In 2012, Netflix made a huge output deal with Disney that fully comes online next year, bringing with it all of the Mouse House’s family-friendly live-action and animated films. The company has also done deals for old episodes of Reading Rainbow and is working on new versions of Magic School Bus and Degrassi, while also launching a slew of its own kiddie originals. Amazon Prime has similarly made development of new children’s content a priority. In addition to new episodes of Sesame, HBO is also licensing 150 vintage episodes of the show (most likely to beef up its on-demand library) and agreed to produce a new Sesame Street–Muppet spinoff series. (HBO has a long relationship with the Muppets, having aired the Jim Henson–created Fraggle Rock back in the early 1980s.)



In some ways, the HBO-Sesame agreement is a positive for advocates of quality educational programming for children. For the next five years, execs and producers at Sesame Workshop don’t have to worry about where their funding will come from, and, most likely, will actually have a much bigger budget to produce more and better content. PBS and its member stations also will have a little bit more money on hand to spend on other kids’ shows (though perhaps not much: In 2012, Slate put the network’s contribution to Sesame Street’s budget at a modest $4 million annually). It’s also true that most Sesame Street episodes aren’t exactly pegged to current events, nor do educational trends shift so quickly that a nine-month delay between the HBO and PBS airing of episodes will irreparably harm less well-off kids. Children whose parents can’t afford HBO aren’t being totally cut off.

And yet, today’s deal is absolutely a landmark, and not in a good way. For more than 40 years, Sesame Street has belonged to virtually every kid in America equally. You didn’t need to have cable to travel to Sesame Street, just a TV set. Every kid learned the same lessons at the same time. And when big things happened in the world, Sesame Street comforted all kids at the same time: The show’s post-9/11 episodes helped every child make sense of their grief, not just those whose parents were able to spend $15 a month on a TV subscription. But even if the practical effects of this agreement aren’t that dramatic, on a philosophical level, this is a very big deal. At a time when both Democratic and Republican candidates are railing against the rising tide of inequality in America, one of our nation’s great equalizers — public TV — has agreed to partially abandon what is perhaps its most important asset to a for-profit corporation. HBO isn’t the bad guy here: It wouldn’t have been able to make this deal if Sesame Workshop felt the future of Sesame Street were vibrant and secure on PBS. This happened because our dysfunctional political system has made what ought to be a universally accepted principle — quality educational programming should be free and easily available to all kids, regardless of their parents’ income level — somehow controversial. Somewhere today, Mitt Romney is smiling.

*A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Sesame Workshop as the Children's Television Workshop.

 

[IIOY]

I haven't followed this closely, but will PBS still be able to air reruns? 

[FloFTW]

Aug 14, 2015 9:49:48 GMT -5 IIOY said:

I haven't followed this closely, but will PBS still be able to air reruns? 

Yes but not until 9 months after HBO does. And I think they have a limited number of old-old reruns they can run. Imma go search for that, I can't remember exactly.

[heyjude]

Horrible news,

[FloFTW]

Aug 14, 2015 9:49:48 GMT -5 IIOY said:

I haven't followed this closely, but will PBS still be able to air reruns? 

OK I had it backwards. HBO licensed 150 hours of old Sesame Street. I think PBS can run the old reruns if it wants.

[FloFTW]

OK I'm going to bold the last paragraph because that's really my issue with this. It's so, so sad.

[eclaires]

I am really torn on this. I see some positives and there are a lot of ways to access this that are pretty affordable but they also require things that not everyone has - smart phones, technological know how, etc.

I love Sesame Street but there are other great programs on PBS too.

[miniroller]

I really don't have anything to say besides

[ESF]

They are making this political, but the truth is actually much more nuanced than that. I've got friends in senior positions in the public broadcasting world so I know a bit about this. I don't have a link, you will have to trust me that what I'm conveying is correct.

Over the last 15 years or so, CTW has laid off a lot of staff and reduced their production schedule quite a bit, that's not just because public radio is a political football. Many, many back episodes of Sesame Street are still relevant and useable today, and there just isn't a need to make dozens of new episodes every year because stations can air reruns of what's already been done. Most public radio stations would rather get a small amount of new episodes and a whole bunch of reruns, and save their money for more expensive programming, like Downton Abbey, and local programming. People don't donate to local stations because they air 30 brand new Sesame Street episodes a year. They donate because Sesame Street episodes of some sort are on, and because there's unique programming that they as adults like. So buying new programs is a low priority, they'd rather buy cheaper reruns because there's a library of stuff already made big enough to entertain every child for years.

I predict this move us going to result in CTW making the shows more tied to current events, so that HBO doesn't do to them in five years what public channels are already doing. That's what's going to wind up causing an economic divide. But the alternative is going to be CTW dying off, regardless of how much funding Congress gives them.

[Skyesthelimit1212]

Ok so i couldn't read this all because my brain wasn't absorbing the words. Just please tell me they aren't going to turn SS into Ave Q, because I will have to hunt sumbitch down.

[heyjude]

This is like giving rich kids first priority in Head Start programs.

[downtoearth]

Aug 14, 2015 10:10:48 GMT -5 Skyesthelimit1212 said:

Ok so i couldn't read this all because my brain wasn't absorbing the words. Just please tell me they aren't going to turn SS into Ave Q, because I will have to hunt sumbitch down.

No. It will be kids programming still.

[StrawberryBlondie]

I think this is overall bad news, but I do see some positives.

[ringstrue]

All I can say is that this is just the latest news about our cast system, not what's creating it or what is helping it to come in the future. You've needed atleast a digital box to watch any sort of TV for years now. I thought someone on here said once that most CTW watchers were UMC anyway, and usually don't even donate. A large number of PBS kid shows are from other countries. Most American's with cash to spend on TV watch Disney Jr. Nick Jr., Sprout, etc., or Netflix/Hulu everything. Don't declare trouble now that beloved Sesame Street is gone when we should have been asking WTF years ago.

[downtoearth]

I'm not sure I'm really that upset. I mean, I love PBS and the kids have always watched kid shows there (although, admittedly, not much Sesame Street b/c we're a working family and it's always on during work hours), but TV and especially most of the programs in the evenings are getting more and more expensive. If congress is not going to increase funding for a public channel, then I think the people who are making the shows need to get creative.

I've never had HBO, ever, and cable for only about 4 years of our life, so our household will be one that ends up getting the new episodes 9 months later than those who can afford it. I agree that the worst part about this is that we don't prioritize early childhood education or funding for programs providing that at the national level at all!

ETA: Oh and I heard on the radio that all episodes developed with HBO will be FREE to pbs stations at the 9 month mark. So this is a huge financial boon to PBS to not have to pay for new episodes as in the past. Kind of like what ESF said.

[heyjude]

I'm not sure how many of you watch Sesame Street lately but it has become one big walking advertisement for prestige TV and hollywood movies. The spoofs are brilliant and funny but they are clearly designed to cross promote whatever big must see TV show is airing or about to air. (See for example the House of Cards spoof that aired immediately before Netflix released the 3rd season of HoC). It seems, rather than pay walling SS, HBO, Netflix, AMC, movie studios etc, should be making large donations to PBS for such cross promotional events. Because really, 3 year olds don't give a hoot about Boardwalk Empire.

[heyjude]

Aug 14, 2015 10:36:22 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

Aug 14, 2015 10:32:11 GMT -5 heyjude said:

I'm not sure how many of you watch Sesame Street lately but it has become one big walking advertisement for prestige TV and hollywood movies. The spoofs are brilliant and funny but they are clearly designed to cross promote whatever big must see TV show is airing or about to air. (See for example the House of Cards spoof that aired immediately before Netflix released the 3rd season of HoC). It seems, rather than pay walling SS, HBO, Netflix, AMC, movie studios etc, should be making large donations to PBS for such cross promotional events. Because really, 3 year olds don't give a hoot about Boardwalk Empire.

Okay, but children's shows have ALWAYS done this. 

SS is way more about the spoofs of hot TV shows now then when I was a kid.

And I can't think of any other kid show that does this. It doesn't happen at all on the other kid shows my DD watches.

Eta: and I'm not saying it's a bad thing I'm just saying it should be a revenue source.

Eta 2: oh an thanks to this move I guess we won't get to see any non HBO spoofs anymore!

[heyjude]

And this is exactly what republicans have wanted for years. If you like big bird so much, pay for him yourself!

[heyjude]

In fact we should just use this model for all our beleaguered publically supported social services. It's the GOP dream come true!

[heyjude]

Sorry I'm just really upset by this.

What kills is that public education has already been greatly stratified, with the well to do having access to excellant free education and the have nots getting access to poor performing schools, at best. And this stratification starts at birth with access to quality early learning programs virtually non existent for the poor, but abundant if you can afford it.

Sesame Street came in like a great equalizer. That was its mission. That's why it started. To give poor young kids the same boost that rich kids got just by virtue of birth happenstance. That mission has just been turned on its head and I shudder to think what will happen to our other social safety net programs under this new public/private partnership model. Because trust, republicans are going to use this PBS deal as a way to slash and burn many other publicly supported social welfare programs.

[ESF]

Aug 14, 2015 11:25:21 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Sorry I'm just really upset by this.

What kills is that public education has already been greatly stratified, with the well to do having access to excellant free education and the have nots getting access to poor performing schools, at best. And this stratification starts at birth with access to quality early learning programs virtually non existent for the poor, but abundant if you can afford it.

Sesame Street came in like a great equalizer. That was its mission. That's why it started. To give poor young kids the same boost that rich kids got just by virtue of birth happenstance. That mission has just been turned on its head and I shudder to think what will happen to our other social safety net programs under this new public/private partnership model. Because trust, republicans are going to use this PBS deal as a way to slash and burn many other publicly supported social welfare programs.

That's fair, but please know that this is not a problem that was caused by a lack of funding to public broadcasting for a few reasons.

Here are some facts.

 This isn't some tiny little nonprofit.  The CEO makes almost a million dollars a year.  The organization rakes in millions from licensing deals.  That's where most of its money is coming from.  

The second biggest source of funding is what it's getting from the public radio stations that want to air the program. The radio stations don't have huge audience demand for lots and lots of brand new Sesame episodes. There's not concept of having a new "season" of Sesame Street every year.  So they license more reruns at a cheaper rate.

It's smallest revenue source is from federal funds.  By way of background, there are two channels for public broadcasting organizations to get funding.  One is through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. When Republicans talk about killing federal support of public broadcasting, that is what they are talking about.  The grant that CPB gets every year under the federal budget.  CPB distributes most of its money to public broadcasting stations, not to content producers.  A much smaller portion of its budget (maybe 20-30%, I think) goes to support special projects.  These include special projects at actual broadcast stations, and special projects by content producers to air them on public broadcasting channels.  
 CTW/Sesame Workshop is just one recipient of dozens and dozens every year that receive special project funding.  And not all that funding goes to Sesame Street.  The only example of such funding I could find was a few special episodes about Hurricane Katrina.  That's it. 

Even if CPB was operating at higher levels, it is highly doubtful that CPB would be providing the kind of funding to keep the organization from turning to HBO. That's because CPB's funding model has never once been one that has been intended to sustain a content producer's operations. 

And there's still public funding available through other programs, like ones through the Department of Education, and maybe the FCC, and a few other places.  These programs distribute funds to an array of organizations, not just those producing content to appear on public media.   So they aren't really easily severed out for special treatment by the GOP in their war against public broadcasting.

[af1212]

Aug 14, 2015 10:32:11 GMT -5 heyjude said:

I'm not sure how many of you watch Sesame Street lately but it has become one big walking advertisement for prestige TV and hollywood movies. The spoofs are brilliant and funny but they are clearly designed to cross promote whatever big must see TV show is airing or about to air. (See for example the House of Cards spoof that aired immediately before Netflix released the 3rd season of HoC). It seems, rather than pay walling SS, HBO, Netflix, AMC, movie studios etc, should be making large donations to PBS for such cross promotional events. Because really, 3 year olds don't give a hoot about Boardwalk Empire.

Part of the reason that so much "hidden" adult content is in Sesame Street is because one of the missions of the show is to get adults to watch WITH their children. They slide in adult humor, celebs, etc so that adults will find it interesting and stick around while that stuff goes over the preschoolers heads.

When I was in graduate school one of my courses focused a whole bunch on the research behind Sesame Street and how educational research has influenced the changes in the program's format and methods. It was super interesting! I'm on my iPad and can't properly paste the articles but here is a snippet from a Wikipedia that discusses this premise behind the show:

Cooney's study, titled "Television for Preschool Education",[17] spelled out how television could be used to help young children, especially from low-income families, prepare for school.[26][27] The focus on the new show was on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, but Cooney and the show's creators recognized that in order to achieve the kind of success they wanted, it had to be equally accessible to children of all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.[16] At the same time, they wanted to make the show so appealing to inner-city children that it would help them learn as much as children with more educational opportunities. This was the show's primary criterion for success.[28][29]

Cooney proposed that public television, even though it had a poor track record in attracting inner-city audiences,[30] could be used to improve the quality of children's programming. She suggested using the television medium's "most engaging traits",[31]including high production values, sophisticated writing, and quality film and animation, to reach the largest audience possible. In the words of critic Peter Hellman, "If [children] could recite Budweiser jingles from TV, why not give them a program that would teach the ABCs and simple number concepts?"[4] Cooney wanted to create a program that would spread values favoring education to nonviewers—including their parents and older siblings, who tended to control the television set.[32] To this end, she suggested that humor directed toward adults be included,[33] which, as Lesser reported, "may turn out to be a pretty good system in forcing the young child to stretch to understand programs designed for older audiences".[34] Cooney also believed cultural references and guest appearances by celebrities would encourage parents and older siblings to watch the show together.[24]

[ESF]

This article is really good. It better captures what the problem here really is, and was shared on my Facebook feed by a person deeply entrenched in the industry.

blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/its-not-sesame-streets-fault-they-went-to-hbo-its-ours-20150813

The Vox piece hyperlinked in there is also worth a read.

[heyjude]

ESF, I see what you are saying but none of these facts get at the heart of the philisophical problem with this change.

The answer isn't further privatizing PBS or Sesame Street; the answer is further public support. (And I have always had an issue with SS reliance on licensing agreements. This exploded in the 90s and it always seemed risky.)

And okay, industry insiders like this deal. Great. More money and stability for them. But I'm wating to hear from policy wonks in the early ed realm because I'm thinking they will have a different perspective.

[heyjude]

Also aside, Univision is now airing a new version of first run Sesame Streets in Spanish on Saturdays and Sundays. At least poor american latino kids will have this.

[heyjude]

Aug 14, 2015 12:00:33 GMT -5 af1212 said:

Aug 14, 2015 10:32:11 GMT -5 heyjude said:

I'm not sure how many of you watch Sesame Street lately but it has become one big walking advertisement for prestige TV and hollywood movies. The spoofs are brilliant and funny but they are clearly designed to cross promote whatever big must see TV show is airing or about to air. (See for example the House of Cards spoof that aired immediately before Netflix released the 3rd season of HoC). It seems, rather than pay walling SS, HBO, Netflix, AMC, movie studios etc, should be making large donations to PBS for such cross promotional events. Because really, 3 year olds don't give a hoot about Boardwalk Empire.

Part of the reason that so much "hidden" adult content is in Sesame Street is because one of the missions of the show is to get adults to watch WITH their children. They slide in adult humor, celebs, etc so that adults will find it interesting and stick around while that stuff goes over the preschoolers heads.

When I was in graduate school one of my courses focused a whole bunch on the research behind Sesame Street and how educational research has influenced the changes in the program's format and methods. It was super interesting! I'm on my iPad and can't properly paste the articles but here is a snippet from a Wikipedia that discusses this premise behind the show:

Cooney's study, titled "Television for Preschool Education",[17] spelled out how television could be used to help young children, especially from low-income families, prepare for school.[26][27] The focus on the new show was on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, but Cooney and the show's creators recognized that in order to achieve the kind of success they wanted, it had to be equally accessible to children of all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.[16] At the same time, they wanted to make the show so appealing to inner-city children that it would help them learn as much as children with more educational opportunities. This was the show's primary criterion for success.[28][29]

Cooney proposed that public television, even though it had a poor track record in attracting inner-city audiences,[30] could be used to improve the quality of children's programming. She suggested using the television medium's "most engaging traits",[31]including high production values, sophisticated writing, and quality film and animation, to reach the largest audience possible. In the words of critic Peter Hellman, "If [children] could recite Budweiser jingles from TV, why not give them a program that would teach the ABCs and simple number concepts?"[4] Cooney wanted to create a program that would spread values favoring education to nonviewers—including their parents and older siblings, who tended to control the television set.[32] To this end, she suggested that humor directed toward adults be included,[33] which, as Lesser reported, "may turn out to be a pretty good system in forcing the young child to stretch to understand programs designed for older audiences".[34] Cooney also believed cultural references and guest appearances by celebrities would encourage parents and older siblings to watch the show together.[24]

Again, I have no problem with the adult content. Just seems like it could be a good revenue stream.

[heyjude]

And I just read that as part of the deal, Sesame Street will no longer stream on Netflix or Amazon and they are closing down their own paid streaming service.

[heyjude]

And my other question is will Sesame Street continue to get public subsidies (meager as they may be) to be on HBO?

And how will HBO execs influence content?

[StrawberryBlondie]

Aug 14, 2015 10:32:11 GMT -5 heyjude said:

I'm not sure how many of you watch Sesame Street lately but it has become one big walking advertisement for prestige TV and hollywood movies. The spoofs are brilliant and funny but they are clearly designed to cross promote whatever big must see TV show is airing or about to air. (See for example the House of Cards spoof that aired immediately before Netflix released the 3rd season of HoC). It seems, rather than pay walling SS, HBO, Netflix, AMC, movie studios etc, should be making large donations to PBS for such cross promotional events. Because really, 3 year olds don't give a hoot about Boardwalk Empire.

I thought that stuff was to keep the adults stick watching entertained.

[ESF]

Aug 14, 2015 12:18:34 GMT -5 heyjude said:

ESF, I see what you are saying but none of these facts get at the heart of the philisophical problem with this change.

The answer isn't further privatizing PBS or Sesame Street; the answer is further public support. (And I have always had an issue with SS reliance on licensing agreements. This exploded in the 90s and it always seemed risky.)

And okay, industry insiders like this deal. Great. More money and stability for them. But I'm wating to hear from policy wonks in the early ed realm because I'm thinking they will have a different perspective.

I don't entirely disagree, but in this very specific case, it's not clear who or where you throw funding at to keep new shows on public broadcasting.

Stations don't see a value in purchasing lots of brand new episodes of Sesame Street.   In some ways, the show is a victim of its own success.  The fact that the shows are so timeless and universal means there isn't a demand for new seasons the way there might be a demand for new seasons of other shows. This is compounded by the fact that they are only watched by kids for a short time period of their lives, and kids aren't binge watching SS like an adult binge watches Downton Abbey, so there's already an enormous library of shows available for children.

 Why buy new stuff when the old stuff is exactly the same product but for less?  Sure, a few new episodes a year are great for purposes of getting Sonya Sotomayor on the show or cover a very traumatic or important current event.  Stations see a value in buying a few new episodes a year.  They just don't see a value in buying lots of new ones a year, or at least not enough to sustain it.  Giving stations or the producers more money won't help because the government can't force a station to air specific shows.  The only thing the government could do would be to offer funding to stations that wanted to air new episodes of Sesame Street so they could support the continued development of full seasons. But the stations wouldn't have to take it, and you'd need a critical mass to make it worth it.