Talk:What if Disney bought Sesame Workshop & The Jim Henson Company/@comment-44277296-20191101014718

Y’know, I’m kind of enjoying this topic, so I’ll continue. I’ll tackle some points in your original post.

If Disney bought Sesame today, they wouldn’t have to buy the rights to the Sesame films. Disney has owned the Muppets for 15 years, and Muppets Take Manhattan and Muppets From Space are still owned by Sony. Elmo in Grouchland is owned by Sony, Follow That Bird and the upcoming Sesame film are owned by WB and it’ll stay that way. Unless Disney just REALLY REALLY wants these films (and other Henson/Muppet-involved films) and the other distributors are willing to sell.

Next, Sesame Workshop doesn’t “belong” to PBS. They’re separate organizations. And there’s no way Disney, or ANYONE, could buy PBS. It’s public broadcasting. That’s be like Disney buying NPR. Companies can’t even own two commercial broadcasters (ABC, Fox, etc) so PBS is no dice. And they sure wouldn’t team with *Comcast* in such an effort. Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit, which comes with its own difficulties if not impossibilities, but Disney would deal with them directly.

There are rational reasons one might like Disney to own Sesame. Elmo dressing like Mickey Mouse is not the way to go. I can see the Disney, Sesame, and Muppet characters together on “promotional” type things (corporate material, annual reports, licensing stuff, etc). But Sesame Street itself has to remain “Sesame Street.” If Disney used the most iconic educational show on TV to push Mickey and Disney Channel stars, they would get a lot of crap and deservedly so. A Disney/Sesame merger (if that’s even realistic) would get a lot of scrutiny, so the integrity of Sesame under Disney would have to be painstakingly maintained.

Henson Alternative wouldn’t become “Disney Alternative.” Heck, I doubt Disney would even care about it. To the extent they would, they’d probably just make stuff for Disney-owned Hulu.

As far as Sesame and HBO. They just struck a new deal for new Sesames and the Sesame library to be on HBO Max for the next five years. In this hypothetical, Disney would either just wait for the HBO deal to expire to make a move on Sesame OR even if they owned Sesame a year from now, they would likely honor the contract and let the deal run its course before moving Sesame Street (whether it be new or classic episodes) to Disney+ or Disney Jr or wherever. I assume Disney would want Sesame for its own streamers, so the massive Workshop library that’s on HBO Max would likely be on Disney+. If the actual show were to continue (it’d be 55 seasons at the end of the HBO Max deal), I’d imagine that’d go to Disney+ as well, though Disney Jr (if they ditch the commercials) would be plausible. And if Disney were smart, they’d continue HBO’s deal of providing Sesame Street free of charge to PBS affiliates nine months after they first air.