Sesame Street has been active on YouTube for nearly 20 years, and it’s not leaving that territory anytime soon. Thanks to a multifaceted deal between the Sesame Workshop and its longtime host platform, YouTube will add “hundreds of full episodes” of Sesame Street as well as seminars that will teach creators how to create impactful children’s content.
The official Sesame Street YouTube channel dates back to January 2006, making it one of the oldest brand hubs on the Google-owned video site. Since then, Sesame Street has surpassed numerous round-number milestones. It has collected 28 billion lifetime YouTube views while attracting nearly 28 million subscribers.
Thanks to the latest expansion of Sesame Street‘s YouTube presence, those numbers will soar even higher. The raft of episodes coming to YouTube includes some “classic” installments of the 56-year-old educational TV franchise. Those blasts from the past will live alongside YouTube-exclusive content, which Sesame Workshop will continue to produce. So if you liked Elmo’s collab with Toys and Colors earlier this year, you’re in luck.
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YouTube’s Sesame Workshop partnership will also extend to its creator community. The nonprofit — which performs extensive research related to topics like childhood development and early education — will share its secrets with channel owners who want to produce “content that is entertaining while also promoting learning.”
The deal stands to benefit both parties. Sesame Street will deepen its YouTube presence after ending its deal with HBO last year. Netflix stepped in to provide a new streaming home for the beloved program, but two months before the premiere of new Sesame Street episodes, YouTube solidified itself as the go-to source for reruns from the show’s golden age.
For YouTube, deals of this nature are uncommon, as the platform is not known for buying scripted shows that previously premiered on linear networks. Changing times, however, require changing strategies. Deals like Netflix’s agreement with Ms. Rachel and the Disney+ CoComelon coup show that major streaming services are eager to poach the top-performing children’s shows on YouTube. The Sesame Street pact shores up YouTube and preserves its reputation as a favorite destination of Gen Alpha consumers.
But the deal is not just about competition with other platforms. With statutes like COPPA in effect, platforms like YouTube are awash in regulatory scrutiny. That’s why they’ve committed to measures that will steer kids toward more beneficial content. With that mission in mind, classic Sesame Street episodes seem like the perfect videos for today’s youth to watch.
