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The deal will make the next five seasons of "Sesame Street"
available first on HBO and its on-demand and mobile services,
and will allow the makers of the show to produce twice as much
new content as they have done in previous seasons, the new
partners said in a statement. The new episodes will start
running on HBO, a unit of Time Warner Inc., in the late fall
this year.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the 45-year
old show, said it will produce a Muppet spinoff series and
develop a new educational series for children.
Jeffrey D. Dunn, Sesame Workshop's chief executive officer, said
the partnership with HBO "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."
"Sesame Street," had previously been broadcast in the United
States on publicly-funded PBS, which is free of charge to TV
viewers. Under the deal, new episodes of the show will run on
PBS after a nine-month window.
Aimed at pre-schoolers, "Sesame Street" created Muppets like
Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie Monster that have become cultural
icons around the world. The show has won more than 150 Emmy
awards and is broadcast in some 140 nations.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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