Maybe it's the whole kit-and-caboodle he's talking about: the changes to the sets, the moving characters into different apartments, the reduction of a "core six" Muppet cast, shortening to an hour, and all.
That's really put a bad taste in my mouth about the upcoming and future seasons. Something tells me the major shake ups aren't just the ones they're talking about. I don't think the set change was the catalyst specifically, but it really could be other things. Anything is pure speculation at this point, but it just sounds like something worrisome. I don't think it's
directly related to the HBO deal, since Joey says it was almost a year of fighting, and this deal didn't sound like it was anything beyond this spring at best. No, I think it has something more to do with the new head of Sesame Workshop and or PBS. Maybe the consideration of HBO was also a major problem, something sounds like the budget crisis was a long time coming this season. I mean, either PBS goaded SW into the half hour format or SW was planning it all along with PBS in mind.
Either way, there's a lot of people to make out to be the villain here. Problem is, until we get some sort of in-depth narrative of what actually happened, we can't just say who's to blame yet and what we should worry about.