Well, it’s only been a few days since news broke that Sesame Street has found a new distribution deal with Netflix, and people are already wrong on the Internet. That’s right. People are making posts about this news and being wrong while doing so.
I cannot abide by this. It is time for people to Stop Being Wrong.
Allow me, a grown woman who cares way too much about Sesame Street and public television distribution deals, to help you all.
Here are some things I’ve seen people Be Wrong About, with the necessary corrections. Join me, and feel free to share this with folks you know who are Wrong.
1. Sesame Street is behind a paywall now. Poor kids won’t be able to watch it.
Fun fact! If you click on any of the news articles any website has posted, you can read them! And if you read them, you’ll see that the deal Sesame made with Netflix clearly states that episodes will premiere simultaneously on Netflix and PBS.
Reading is truly fundamental, folks!
This is great for the show. When Warner Brothers Discovery acquired the distribution rights to show Sesame Street on HBO back in 2015, the show aired on PBS still, but on a nine-month delay. Episodes would debut on HBO, then hit PBS almost a year later. Now, kids are getting the episodes at the same time, regardless of how much their parents pay for subscriptions. As long as a kid can watch PBS, they can watch brand new episodes of Sesame Street. This includes PBS’s websites, digital platforms, and apps.
Netflix already does something like this with some shows. For example, the popular indie cartoon The Amazing Digital Circus releases new episodes simultaneously for free on YouTube and behind a paywall on Netflix. So yeah, it can work, it has worked, and I’m very glad that model is being applied to Sesame.
To reiterate: All kids will still have access to new Sesame Street episodes and that’s good.
2. Netflix now owns Sesame Street.
No, Netflix signed a distribution deal with Sesame Street. Sesame is, as always, owned by Sesame Workshop. You know this! It was probably called the Children’s Television Workshop when you were a kid, but it’s the same idea. Sesame will now be receiving funding from Netflix, but that does not come with a change of ownership.
3. Sesame Street should not be owned by anyone, the way it used to be.
OK, we just went through this one. Sesame was never publicly-owned. It received funding from PBS, and aired on PBS, but it was owned by the Sesame Workshop. Remember? From a few lines ago?
Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit, but it has always been privately owned. Do I wish the show was a public good like libraries or parks? Sure. But that’s just not how the show has ever worked. We cannot count on the Cookie Monster to dismantle capitalism and private ownership, so we’re just going to have to live with things being the way they always were.
4. Netflix has saved Sesame Street from MAGA’s cuts to PBS.
This is an interesting one I’ve seen a lot. The short answer is that, if we’re going to be accurate, Netflix has saved Sesame Street from David Zaslav, but not Elon and co. But I do want to take a second to address this in a little more depth.
Obviously, there has been a lot of talk lately about the government defunding public television and radio. In many of these hearings, politicians have spoken about Elmo and Big Bird, specifically calling out things like Sesame’s “Power of We” specials.
The problem here is that Sesame stopped receiving funding from PBS in 2015. For the past decade, Sesame has been funded by Warner Bros Discovery (though still privately owned by Sesame Workshop, which you probably still remember from a few lines ago). WBD paid for the show, and allowed PBS to air new episodes of Sesame Street nine months after they debuted on HBO Max. You remember that too, right?
In 2024, WBD declined to renew this contract, in part of Zaslav’s team’s new plan to focus more on programming for adults and families rather than children.
And now we’ve learned that Netflix has picked up the distribution rights, thus indicating that Netflix has not saved the show from MAGA, but from Warner.
Here’s where things get tricky, though. A spokesperson for Sesame explained that “PBS and CPB [The Corporation for Public Broadcasting] are contributing to Sesame Street’s production costs. With their support, Sesame Street will continue to be available for free on PBS, PBS KIDS 24/7, and across PBS Kids’ digital video and games apps, continuing our 50+ year relationship of using the power of public television to bring critical early learning to children across the country for free.”
This is all very good, obviously. As we discussed! You know, a few…okay, you got it.
But if you notice, PBS now is co-funding Sesame, where they weren’t back when Warned Bros. Discovery was distributing the show. So does this mean Sesame is now more at risk from PBS cuts than it was, say, eight years ago? Like all current events in 2025, it’s kind of hard to predict.
In the meantime, I am very glad that Sesame Street is safe and accessible for now, and that’s something we should all celebrate.
5. Sesame Street is woke now.
Oh, sweetie. The show, which debuted the year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, has always been about an interracial neighborhood. It’s always been woke.
Click here to tell Will and Dustin to stop being wrong on the ToughPigs Discord!
by Becca Petunia
