It’s official, folks: The one percent have now taken over “Sesame Street.”
Cable network HBO said it would be paying a portion of the show’s budget in exchange for earlier access to the show’s episodes.
Under the deal, which was announced Aug. 13, episodes that originally aired on HBO would then air on PBS nine months later for free.
One certainly can’t blame the Sesame Workshop, the non-profit that produces the show, for making the decision to work with HBO.
It’s not their fault only about 10 percent of the show’s revenue comes from PBS, thus Sesame Workshop to look for other means of funding.
Without a stable fund, “Sesame Street” would be moving to the cancelled list instead of network television.
Despite being one of the most popular birds on television, Big Bird cannot put on a suit and meet with congressional leaders to ask for more money.
The new deal is beneficial to the Sesame Workshop in other ways as well.
For example, the Sesame Workshop will now be able to make 35 episodes of Sesame Street a year instead of the 18 it currently produces.
A new spin-off series featuring characters from the show will also go into production at a later date.
So, why is this deal a bad thing?
It seems like everyone involved is getting something they want.
HBO gets exclusive access to Big Bird, Elmo and other characters.
The Sesame Workshop gets the funding it needs to create the show.
PBS will no longer have to enter the tar pit of our nation’s capital to ask for more funding for Sesame Street.
Instead, PBS can now air episodes of the show for free, albeit at a later time.
The reality of the situation is this deal potentially limits access to the show for the viewers who need its programming the most — low-income families.
Sesame Street was originally designed to be accessible by children in all types of homes.
To this day, the program remains an important part of early childhood education for many families who don’t have the financial resources to provide pre-K education for their children.
Sesame Street has been proven to make a difference in education.
One study compared its effectiveness to Head Start, the federal program that seeks to improve education for low-income preschoolers.
By allowing HBO to air episodes nine months before PBS does, PBS is creating new barriers between children and education.
Sesame Street is about more than just puppets singing the ABCs.
It’s about equal access to education for all children, regardless of socioeconomic status.
Now families that can afford an HBO subscription will be the first to enjoy the educational services the program offers.
We’ve known since Brown v. Board of Education that separate is not equal, so why are we trying to separate children based on their socioeconomic status?
Who knew Elmo would be a prominent face of the growing divide between the rich and the poor in America?
ttfitzpa@indiana.edu
