Haven't heard about a format change (except for the possibility of a new Cookie format segment), but Bill Sherman confirmed at a Lincoln Center event in January that the theme song is being re-done again.
FINALLY!!!
Errmmm...
Whatever a format change, I'm with dwayne on this one. We don't know what's going to be the deal with this, so I can't rightfully say anything positive or negative about it.
As far as I'm concerned, what I'd like to see changed:
Get rid of Abby's Flying School already. There hasn't been a new episode for at least 2 years, and it's just a 9 minute door stop now. Granted, they really can't find much else to fill the show with, but it really brings down the flow.
I'm on the fence about Murray. I do like how they've made less time for him this season and all (I'll get to that in a minute), but the human/Muppet interactions are amazing. I absolutely love the concept of him being out there and interacting with regular people. I don't want to see that go away, but maybe tweaked to just be Murray had a Little Lamb and or Peeps in the Neighborhood. But not as linking material.
While I like the concept of them introducing numbers and letters of the day musically, and the songs themselves are quite good, I'd like to see them return to what they did that one season before the format changed and have the residents of the street do it, sometimes in context of the street story. The song segment got very repetitive fast.
A little less celebrity focus. I'm sure that we can see some Word on the Street segments with
just Muppets. Plus, the Abby accidentally turns the celebrity into something to explain the word joke is pretty stale.
And of course, while not a format change exactly, but better use of filler segments cultivated from existing footage not seen on the show. We shouldn't see the same song parody three times in a season.