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Sesame Street, the iconic American children's television program with a 56-year history, faced the threat of production suspension due to the expiration of its contract with its previous channel. However, it has signed a new deal with the streaming company Netflix.
According to reports from the New York Times (NYT) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on May 19 (local time), Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces Sesame Street, announced that it has entered into a new distribution agreement with Netflix.
With this agreement, more than 300 million Netflix subscribers worldwide will be able to watch new episodes of Sesame Street as well as 90 hours of previous episodes. Sesame Workshop will be able to overcome its financial difficulties and continue producing new content for the program.
Since 2015, Sesame Workshop has produced new content through a contract with Warner Bros. Discovery's broadcasting channel HBO. However, Warner Bros. announced in December last year that it would not renew the contract, putting Sesame Workshop in a difficult position. Recently, broadcasting and media companies have been spending more money to expand licenses for existing popular content for their streaming businesses, while reducing spending on the production of new content, which generally requires a much larger budget and carries greater uncertainty of success.
Furthermore, it has been reported that Sesame Workshop's financial difficulties worsened this year due to the Donald Trump administration's significant cuts to subsidies for public and nonprofit organizations. As a result, the organization had to lay off about 20% of its entire staff in recent months.
U.S. media outlets reported that, although the amount Netflix paid for this distribution deal has not been disclosed, the agreement has provided Sesame Workshop with much-needed breathing room for its operations. Recently, Netflix has been focusing on strengthening its children's content, which accounts for about 15% of its service.
As one of the longest-running programs in U.S. television history, Sesame Street has aired more than 4,500 episodes since its first broadcast in 1969. Sesame Workshop has produced the program with the goal of helping children grow up healthy through entertaining stories.
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