Sesame Street shrinks to 30 minutes, new shows will premiere on HBO and PBS nine months later

[minor muppetz]

Considering PBS can't air new episodes until after nine months, I wonder what Sesame Street content will air. There's only one season of half-hour versions, so will more episodes be edited down to 30 minutes, or will the hour-long episodes continue to be rerun on PBS, or will the show air less times a week on PBS for awhile, or will the half-hour versions of the season 45 episodes get too much exposure on the channel for a year?

It was announced that HBO will rerun 150 older episodes, but we don't know how far back. I'm hoping that some classic-era episodes will rerun on HBO, but it could be fairly recent seasons. But now I feel that, with PBS having to wait, that maybe PBS should rerun all of the HD seasons. Then again, I guess it wasn't said that PBS can't rerun the same episodes that HBO reruns.

 

[mbmfrog]

I know the Muppets had History with HBO, given the origins of Fraggle Rock, but to see Sesame Street come on HBO, especially given its history of shows on the network, just speaks a bit changing of times.

Plus how are they going to air the show on HBO, given that not everyone has the many mini HBO networks channels ?

I have to say desperate times calls for desperate measures as this was bound to come sooner or later given the budget cuts of recent years. Still, the other down side of it is that the NON-Cable people have to wait more than 9 months before it can air on PBS.

The only upside to all of this is that Sesame Street isn't leaving PBS. Yet it just feels like a minor mentioning to please those that don't have cable or internet.

 

[D'Snowth]

Again, is it not occuring to any of you that SST may not air on HBO's parent channel, but rather, HBO Family?

Also again, the way everybody keeps talking about, "how can people watch SST on HBO when not everybody has HBO?" That's what I've been saying about Netflix all this time: what's the point of shows and movies going straight to Netflix (which JHC is very much guilty of) when not everybody has Netflix?

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Again, is it not occuring to any of you that SST may not air on HBO's parent channel, but rather, HBO Family?

Also again, the way everybody keeps talking about, "how can people watch SST on HBO when not everybody has HBO?" That's what I've been saying about Netflix all this time: what's the point of shows and movies going straight to Netflix (which JHC is very much guilty of) when not everybody has Netflix?

Although a lot more people have Netflix than HBO.

 

[Drtooth]

Again, is it not occuring to any of you that SST may not air on HBO's parent channel, but rather, HBO Family?

I've heard of kid's programming airing on HBO in the morning hours. But I have no doubt they'd show a lot of the series on Family in addition.

 

[MrMuppet93]

On a side note......will the funding credits be edited out in HBO airings? Underwriting spots are more of a PBS thing.

 

[Oscarfan]

I was wondering about that too. They probably won't need them, allowing for a couple more minutes of show for them. And I'd figure they wouldn't need them either once the new episodes hit PBS. I wonder if those airings will work in the "Viewers Like You" think though.

 

[D'Snowth]

Considering that HBO is providing SW with financial stability without having to rely on funding and sponsorships, I doubt there's really any need for funding credits on HBO.

Similarly, IIRC, UNPAVED and 123 episodes on Noggin only included funky chimes and an added disclaimer saying SST was originally produced for the Public Broadcasting System.

 

[Drtooth]

That makes me wonder if the funding credits are going to mention HBO. Sounds like that could be a possibility.

Anyway, not seeing that Uncanny Valley commercial where a human kid's head on a CGI body is a major plus.

 

[wiley207]

I noticed one of the poll options saying when the show dropped from 130 episodes a season to 26. I will say that with Season 30, they dropped it to 65 episodes a season because of how introducing "Elmo's World" changed the tooling of the show enough that older episodes from prior seasons could not be rerun with new episode numbers and segments. A good bulk of episodes from the last few 130-episode seasons used recycled street stories. As a result, since Season 30 was going to be all-new episodes, they had to drop it from 130 to 65. They didn't try repeating previous street scenes again until Season 32, and then with the next season's big format change, this limited production to 50 episodes, and then ultimately 26 by the season after that.