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Sesame Street Moving to HBO. A Nail in the Coffin for PBS?
For the next five seasons, new episodes of Sesame Street will run first on HBO (and its online partners), then on PBS nine months later. As part of the deal, PBS gets the show for free.
So, is this 1) simply a creative funding arrangement for PBS; 2) a nail in the coffin for PBS’ very existence; or 3) best yet — and my personal opinion — yet more proof that PBS does not need federal subsidies to stay alive and stay “public”?
Published in Culture, EntertainmentFor those of you still scratching your head over this partnership, it makes perfect sense from a business perspective. Though Sesame Street received funding from PBS, that money amounted to less than 10 percent of the funding needed to produce the series. The remaining cash was procured through licensing revenue from DVD and merchandise sales. However, as more and more people turn to streaming and VOD services, fewer and fewer people are purchasing the physical media which used to be Sesame Workshop’s bread and butter. According to The New York Times, approximately two-thirds of children who currently watch Sesame Street do so on demand rather than watching on PBS. Naturally, if we want more Oscar the Grouch in our lives, Sesame Workshop had to find alternate ways of financing his high-rolling, trash-dwelling lifestyle.
My understanding is that HBO has a popular educational history series set in medieval times called Game of Thrones. Haven’t seen it myself.
seriously, I have never watched HBO in my life. I’m a non-cable chix.
I have heard rumors of this “Game of Thrones.” :)
It’s probably a safe bet that programming schedules will segregate family from adult programming. But then the next concern for families that purchase access to HBO is the availability of HBO programming at all hours of the day with on demand cable services. It becomes something that requires policing by parents and babysitters.
Actually HBO has a stand alone channel called HBO Family.
That said…
right, because that already happens…
:(
well, that is good news to me, about the stand-alone, not the New Sopranos. I think TNSopranos should be The New Castrati. :)
Let’s be fair though — the people watching Sesame Street just recently got cut off from getting to look at boobs multiple times a day. Game of Thrones can satisfy that desire!
Of course, teaching them that C is for “country matters” might not go so well.
You mean like the fat controller?
There may be justice in the world… somewhere. But there is not nearly enough justice in the world for us to ever see the end of PBS/NPR.
Oh, we’ll see the end of PBS. Its production budget–the ideology end–in real dollars has been flat for decades. Most of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s money doesn’t go to PBS, but to the member stations directly, as well as to other local projects that members of Congress support.
We’re not likely to see the end of NPR because, like Apple iPads, and certain brands of German cars, and Italian shoes, they’re a commercial success with a strong brand name. If PBS re-labeled themselves “NPR Video” they’d be much better off.
Since they are a commercial success we dare not cut off its government money any more than we should cut off subsidies for the most successful private companies. Instead we can launder it by sending it through the local stations who can then buy the programming.
Reti, you’re right, that’s exactly what happens. The local stations–in many cases, in red states–are bigger recipients of pork barrel cash than the central system. The big difference between radio and TV is the magnitude of the budget and the vast difference in subsidy ratio. It ain’t trivial. PBS would collapse like a wet paper bag without the federal government. Its superficially honest statistics say it gets only a minority share from the feds, but every local station that pays handsomely for their national programming is getting a good chunk of its money from the feds. That’s what Reticulator is talking about.
NPR doesn’t need the fed money, and it knows it. The radio stations are much more local and less subsidy-dependent than their TV brethren. The internet is disrupting their world, but to a far lesser degree. It wants the fed money to make a point, to justify a claim that they are in name and fact the voice of the American people, unsullied by commercial sponsorship, committed to progressive values and entrusted by the Congress itself to speak for everyone. Without a fed buy-in, that’s a tough claim to make.
Face it–without a further penny of govt. dough, NPR is a success, a salable brand for intellectuals and the upper middle class in many parts of America. They made a success in FM radio that parallels conservative success in AM radio.
There are more good points in Gary’s posts than I could possibly quote. But this is key.
However, the real effect was not in NYC or LA, but smaller metros where there were fewer allocated slots and PBS got one of the good VHF slots and one of the good UHF slots. Consider, as more typical, Boston where there were 4 VHF slots (2, 4, 5, and 7) and 4 good UHF slots (25, 38, 44, and 56) or other metros with fewer. 2 and 44 were PBS. That basically deprived the country of a 4th major mainly VHF network and made things much harder to try to assemble formal or ad-hoc mainly UHF networks (Fox, WB, UPN…).
Even in the digital world, the slots PBS gets for free are quite valuable.
I will slightly dispute the other post saying Les Moonves does not have to serve his affiliates. There has been a bit of switching among affiliations such as in Boston. This keeps the networks accountable. However, now that most people are getting served by cable, having the best affiliate signal is not as critical as it one was.
Long… Shearer, Robinson. It’s sort of The Quarrymen of Ricochet.
One can only hope…
Those affiliate switches in the 90s were the result of a power play by News Corp, not unhappiness with CBS. A temporary purchase of New World Communications brought Fox VHF affiliates in Boston, Cleveland, Detroit among others. Of 12 New World stations 8 had CBS ties.
Broadcast nets no longer pay their affiliates. It’s the other way around. Ballooning programming costs, especially rights to the NFL have caused the nets to demand payment from their stations. At one time GE threatened to make NBC a cable network if the affiliates didn’t pony up for Sunday Night Football.
Dr. Who is on BBC America. I don’t need PBS.
Remember the TV series “Family Ties,” with Michael J. Fox as the conservative prodigy Alex P. Keaton in a family of liberal ex-hippies? His father, Stephen, played by Michael Gross, was an executive for a local PBS affiliate.
It’s amusing to consider that more than 20 years ago, when PBS was in its heyday, that it was obvious to the writers that a guy working in public broadcasting would be a flaming liberal.
Sample quote from the show:
I hear they’re also considering a new cooking show, Game of Scones. Looking forward to that one.
Relax and wear a a smile, fellas. Believe me, the weepy frustration and pent-up ideological fury on the staff of any PBS producing station is so off the charts that it would make excellent pay per view entertainment for conservatives.
You’re seen frustrated, end-of-the-world raving from John Galt conservatives convinced we haven’t had a republic since 1955, or 1855. Well, that’s nuthin’. Sit down for lunch with any PBS exec (and tell James O’ Keefe to lend you a camera!) and you’ll hear how legions of dedicated professionals with credentials and 4.0 averages are crippled, taunted and humiliated by heartless rightwingers who just won’t let them have any fun, that is if you define “fun” as “take off the handcuffs and let us give America, this so-called free country, the hardcore Left truths they’ve been thirsting for.”
But we won’t let them.
Because we’re just mean.
This is a perfect analogy.
“When you play the game of scones, you win or your scones are too dry.”
The great British bake off is the best thing on TV and easily worth the donation.
Mary Berry is the bestest
Are you sure they aren’t closer to The Thamesmen?
I would totally win that.
Breakfast is coming.