Last December, Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO Max announced it’s dropping “Sesame Street,” leaving its future up in the air. However, yesterday came some good news. “Sesame Street” finally has a new streaming home: Netflix. Sesame Workshop and Netflix announced that starting this fall, the 56th season of the long-running children’s show will stream on Netflix. The series will see a few new features and changes:
- Episodes will switch to 11-minute-long segments, similar to a lot of modern children’s TV shows.
- The return of “Elmo’s World” as a segment.
- New segments involving Cookie Monster (running a cookie cart) and Abby Cadabby (who has a magical garden). For the unfamiliar, Abby’s a fairy character introduced in 2006. Given “Sesame Street” is already home to various types of monsters, fairy tale characters (the Three Bears), and a vampire, a fairy doesn’t sound out of place?
- The addition of a new animated segment, “Tales From 123,” set inside “Sesame Street”’s apartment building.
- New episodes will air the same day on Netflix and PBS, including the PBS Kids app.
90 hours of previous episodes will also be available to stream on Netflix. The new episodes also have a new head writer, Halcyon Person. Person’s previous experience includes Netflix’s “Karma’s World” and “Dee & Friends in Oz,” two shows starring Black characters (the latter’s a “Wizard of Oz” adaptation).
Pros
The most positive aspect is “Sesame Street” gets to stay in production and on the air.
One big change from the HBO Max days: new episodes will be available on PBS (and the PBS Kids app) the same day as their Netflix debut. This is a very big deal: besides being unusual for a show on Netflix, it also lends better support to PBS, and doesn’t treat “Sesame Street” as a hand-me-down (new episodes would air on PBS months after their HBO Max debut). Given PBS’ current mistreatment by the Trump administration, they could use all the help they can get. Recent Trump-led funding cuts have led to production ending on “Molly of Denali.”
Netflix is also a big improvement over HBO Max. For starters, Netflix is the world’s largest streaming service (301.6 million subscribers, versus HBO Max’s 122.3 million), and thus the one service most people already have. Netflix also has a large kids’ programming emphasis and viewership; Sesame Workshop says kids programming makes up 15% of total Netflix viewing. HBO Max, meanwhile, has decided kids’ programming is no longer a heavy focus, with their “family programming” focus now being on “Harry Potter.” (*Sigh*.)
Cons
On the negative side, Netflix is still a for-profit business, which leaves “Sesame Street” with the same problems regarding capitalism as HBO Max. What happens if Netflix decides to change their mind about the deal? Or if Netflix’s algorithm leads them to make questionable choices about Big Bird and company? Or if Netflix decides that canceling “Sesame Street” and replacing it with more “Cocomelon” (or similar caliber programming) is somehow a good idea?
Netflix is notorious for canceling initially-hyped new shows after a few seasons. While I hope for the best, I’m also hoping I won’t be writing a “Sesame Street looks for a new home” post in 2027.
Image: Cookie Monster. (Sesame Workshop/Netflix)
