"Plaza Sésamo" (Sesame Street en inglés) renacerá con su 56ª temporada a finales de este año en Netflix (sí, así como lo lees, Netflix), pero eso no es lo más importante, pues también estará en Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) de Estados Unidos.
La pareja anunció el acuerdo exclusivo con un breve y adorable vídeo en el que aparece el Monstruo de las Galletas, que descubre y luego se come la «N» de Netflix.
Hace una década, cuando HBO (sí, entonces se llamaba simplemente «HBO») anunció su histórico acuerdo con Barrio Sésamo para llevar la serie a su programación de cable premium, también cambió el hogar original del programa a un estatus de segundo nivel. Todos los primeros episodios se emitían primero en HBO y, nueve meses después, los mismos episodios se emitían en PBS, de acceso gratuito.
Sin embargo, el acuerdo de Netflix cambia radicalmente esta ecuación. Los nuevos episodios de la temporada 56 con Grover, Big Bird, Elmo y el resto de los personajes se emitirán en Netflix y PBS al mismo tiempo.
Básicamente, se trata de dos buenas noticias para el querido programa: Una, Barrio Sésamo, cuyo futuro ya no era seguro, tiene un nuevo hogar popular y bien financiado; y dos, todos los niños y hogares comprometidos con la historia de Barrio Sésamo, independientemente de su acceso o situación financiera, tendrán acceso completo al programa de la temporada.
G is for Good News
Neither Netflix nor Sesame Street is revealing the terms of the deal, but without Netflix's support, it was unclear if Sesame Street would survive.
When I spoke to Sesame Street Execs a decade ago as they were inking the HBO deal, they revealed to me that viewers on PBS accounted for a small percentage of their funding.
"What people don’t understand is that PBS only funds less than 10% of production costs of show. The show was funded for many years by licensing income," said Jeff Dunn in 2015, who is now Executive Chairman at Sesame Workshop.
The key to people buying content and products revolving around the Sesame Street franchise and funding the non-profit Sesame Street Workshop, is a bigger audience devoted to its characters and themes. Netflix, which has roughly 310 million subscribers compared to Max's estimated 110 million, should help in that regard.
Big changes
The season 56 Sesame Street Netflix subscribers (and those watching on PBS) will encounter later this year will be quite different from previous editions.
- Characters will be talking directly to viewers.
- Episodes will take viewers inside the apartment building where the characters live
- Elmo's World will return, and Cookie Monster will get a cookie cart
- Viewers will find more on-screen animations
- Longer story segments
Netflix has also committed to developing games for Sesame Street and Sesame Street Mecha Builders.
The streamer is planning to release Sesame Street Season 56's 35 episodes in three batches on Netflix. It will also add some 90 hours of classic episodes to the platform. As for how many episodes that represents, we'll leave that to The Count to figure out.
You might also like
- Your Netflix home page is getting its biggest update ever, and yes, it includes generative AI
- Best Netflix shows: 56 great TV series to watch in April 2025
- Loved The Office? I highly recommend Steve Carell's new midlife crisis comedy
- Netflix's sound-effect-free subtitles will transform how I watch – and Gen Z will be over the moon
