Why aren't older Sesame Street shows rerun?

[Whataday]

Sorry Wiggy, I didn't see your post while I was typing mine. I forgot that Sesame wasn't owned by Henson anymore. You're right--this indeed makes it even easier to release or rebroadcast old episodes.

I'm not exactly an expert on this, but I was under the impression that the Sesame Workshop has always owned Sesame Street. Jim Henson just owned 50% of the character rights, until EM.TV sold that 50% share to Sesame Workshop.

 

[WiGgY]

I think the Jim Henson Company owned all the rights to the characters, didn't they? How else could Jim Henson just put the Sesame Street Muppets into whatever show, movie, or special he wanted? I think he even went to court about owning the rights to the muppets. Sesame Work Shop probably owned the rest of the show. I'm sure there is an article here somewhere.

Anyway, Sesame Workshop owns the whole thing now, so they can air whatever shows they like. The only thing they would probably need to do is get special permission for any show that contains Kermit. They've done that in the past with no problem.

Maybe Sesame Workshop could air reruns on a network like TV Land. Kids could watch TV Land in the mornings with old shows of Sesame Street and other classic kids shows. Then at like 10 it can start airing the shows it airs now.

 

[Whataday]

I think the Jim Henson Company owned all the rights to the characters, didn't they?

No, I think it was 50:50 between JHC and Sesame Workshop. I seem to remember reading that before Street characters could be licensed to merchandising companies, both JHC and Sesame Workshop had to agree to it.

Check out http://laughingplace.com/News-PID115430-115431.asp

"Part of the problem here was that one of the key points of the Disney / Henson merger deal was Jim Henson's creative services. With Jim now gone, $150 million seemed like an awful lot of money to pay for Kermit & Co.

That's why Disney's attorneys began leaning on the Henson family to begin boosting the value of the remaining Muppet characters. And one of the easiest ways to do this was to restrict the Childrens Television Workshop's ability to license any of its Sesame Street Muppet characters.

To explain: The Childrens Television Workshop and the Jim Henson Company each own 50% of all the Sesame Street Muppet characters. So, in order for a product that's based on a "Sesame Street" Muppet character to be put into production, both the CTW and Henson's marketing staff have to give their okay. If one or the other company says "No" to an idea, that "Sesame Street" Muppet product can not legally go on the market.

What Disney wanted the Henson family to start doing was to refuse to allow the Childrens Television Workshop to create any new "Sesame Street" Muppet based products. Why for? Well, the reasoning behind this not-very-nice scenario is that -- if there were fewer Sesame Street Muppets toys available in stores -- consumers who were in desperate need of a Muppet fix would have no choice but to go to their local Disney Store, where they can pick up their official Disney authorized Muppet toys. Which would -- theoretically -- eventually give the Mouse a monopoly on all new Muppet products.

The trouble with this plan is that -- had the Henson family followed Disney's orders -- they would have eventually choked off a vital revenue source for the Childrens Television Workshop, the company that actually produced the "Sesame Street" television program. Since Jim had always been an ardent supporter of public television (as well as being one of CTW's founding fathers), there was just no way that the Henson family could ever get behind Mickey's blatantly greedy plan."

 

[WiGgY]

Ok, fine, but that doesn't amtter anymore. Sesame Workshop owns 100% now. There would be no hassle to get old shows on the air. They did it with Noggin, why not some place else?

 

[Drtooth]

ssetta said it before...

The reason why they don't do it is because of season 33...

You see, no matter how much bitter disdain the classic SS fan base gives it, the younger kids like the changes. And to swich back to any episode without the new rigid structure would be too confusing for the little kids (the really little ones that they're trying to please... no thanks to Nick Jr.).

It sounds stupid and illogical, but this is their practice

 

[Mark The Shark]

Maybe Sesame Workshop could air reruns on a network like TV Land. Kids could watch TV Land in the mornings with old shows of Sesame Street and other classic kids shows. Then at like 10 it can start airing the shows it airs now.

"They" already did that, for almost four years. The Noggin channel started out as a joint venture between CTW (now known as Sesame Workshop) and Nickelodeon and was a sister station to Nickelodeon and TV Land. Noggin ran a package of 67 "Sesame Streets" from between 1969 and 1989 and another set of episodes from the 1993-1994 season, and those shows were shown over, and over, and over, and over, and over, under, around and through for four years. Noggin is still showing "Sesame Street," but now the episode selection has been changed to much more recent shows. The older ones were run under the title "Sesame Street Unpaved," and apparently, it didn't bring in the number of ratings Noggin wanted...the standard party line is that kids weren't interested in those shows because Elmo is the most popular character these days and he wasn't in many of those episodes, but I think that's just a standard PR statement. Sure, there are a lot of adults who remember these shows and would like to see them again, but those people (including myself) don't make up a large enough number to justify keeping that stuff on. One other major reason why the show might not have been very successful, though, is that the same 67 episodes were repeated many times, and once people realized they had seen them all, then there probably wasn't as much of an interest in watching them. One other factor is that CTW/Sesame Workshop sold out their half of Noggin to Nickelodeon, so eventually, the CTW shows might not be part of it at all. The good news is that a lot of people recorded those shows when they were on, so you can get your fix if you look around. And what I hear a lot of people whining about is true...there are thousands of shows that CTW produced that haven't been repeated...if more were out there, I'd be glad to have them, but remember that until four years ago, none of these shows had been repeated anywhere since their original broadcasts. So if it's a choice between getting 67 episodes (even if a few minutes were edited from each one) versus none at all, I'm glad to have the 67.

 

[WiGgY]

If they did repeat ALL the episodes I think the people's interest would have been held. I know noggin ran those shows, but 67 from so many decades worth of shows isn't enough. TV Land might be a better place for the old Sesame Street. There has to be an audience out there. Heck, I'd even be ok with a little extra Elmo edited into the older shows if that meant keeping them on the air. Tack on an extra 30 minutes to the show, keep the whole show, and then have the rest of the time as past Elmo's World segments.

 

[ssetta]

Well, either that, or, I think there should be a CTW channel. Since SW sold their channel to Nickelodeon, they should just have a channel of their own, and it would have not just Sesame Street Unpaved and 123 Sesame Street from the 1993-94 season, but all the old shows that were once on Noggin. And, the shows would be unedited, and they would have a lot more.

 

[Mark The Shark]

Yes, it would be great if "all" the episodes were shown...but I can't let that remark pass by me without invoking comedian Steven Wright, who said: "You can't have everything...where would you put it?"

Well, where would you put it?

Challenge: Name me *one* show that has been rerun on cable or satellite within the last 20 years that ran as long as "Sesame Street" where *any* attempt was made to repeat a *comprehensive* run of episodes. No one does it. The Game Show Network is a very good example. For many if not most of the game shows they run, only a small sample of episodes are shown, and in some cases, it's only the "evening" version of a show that also aired in daytime, etc. ... because *those are the only episodes that still exist on tape.* When you're dealing with vintage TV shows that haven't been seen anywhere in several decades, there is *a very high probability* that the show's archives were junked years ago. Twenty years ago, and even more recently than that, stations and networks didn't keep a backlog of shows just to have them sit on a shelf. They didn't have the storage space and they didn't have the money to keep purchasing fresh tape stock just so they could have an archive of shows that they never air. If you're really *lucky,* you could find copies of 16mm kinescopes that were shot off the front of a monitor to be used later by some local station somewhere that pre-empted the network feed of a show. But that's about it. Fortunately, it *appears* that CTW/Sesame Workshop did indeed maintain an archive of their vintage shows. And when I first learned that, I was very surprised...because in general terms, the reason a production company (or especially a TV station or network) keeps and saves a tape of an old show is *so it can be used again* and if there is no intention of using it again (for example, the "Sesame Street" and "Electric Company" shows were repeated a certain number of times during the course of the season in which they were produced...and then that was it, and then they moved on to newer episodes, and this has been true right from the beginning). I think it was some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s that I discovered the Museum Of Broadcast Communications in Chicago had a copy of the first episode of "Sesame Street." And I couldn't believe it...because I had thought if it still existed, then *some parts of it* would certainly have been included in one or another of the various *anniversary specials* that have been produced over the years (and though that has occurred since then, up to that time, it hadn't). So I am glad that CTW apparently kept their archives...but even if an extensive collection of episodes does exist on a show...a network or channel running it has to pay for it, and to make it worth their while, it has to be watched by *a lot of people.* I am guessing this is why Noggin never added any additional "Electric Companies" to the 65 they started with in 1999. (On the internet, I read something to the effect that they were planning on adding 65 more, but it never happened.) Why? Because evidently, it would have cost them more money, and they weren't going to make anything by selling commercial time, etc. So the bottom line is this: If you want *more* of something, then *consume what is available* so the owners of that property *know there is a demand* and *know people want more and are willing to pay for it.* That's the only way any of this stuff will be made available. I'm not defending the TV industry, but I've collected a lot of shows, and that's *how it is.*

Have a nice day.

 

[Oliver]

At the very least, for purposes of preservation... they should restore and remaster the original ep's and compile them in digital format and hopefully release them to dvd as the demand is obviously there. A show which spawned over 5 decades and has reached the homes of so many generations of children, so many children's children's children who grew up with the show and made it a farmiliar and household name, must give some sort of signal that the demographic is there, somewhere - in those many generations. If not for the nostalgia alone, or for the sake of raising future generations on such beloved formulas and foundations. People would buy dvd's, if only they were produced and made available to the public.