wrangletangle:

biokitty:

biokitty:

My brother works for Sesame Street with their touring shows.  The day after the election, the company he works for decided they would not be able to keep the tours going because they were going to lose a significant amount of funding due to Trump’s presidency.

It’s happening now. Disney bought out all of the venues they usually go to and they couldn’t compete with the cost so he and his fiancee aren’t going to have jobs after they get married. This is officially the last set of tours by Sesame Street, indefinitely.

He and his fiancee don’t really know what they are going to do. They think they might move to Atlanta but, honestly, they’re going to have to go where they can find work. That’s part of being a freelancer and one of the reasons I had to get out of theatre (constantly being on the lookout for a job is mentally taxing).

It sucks that they’ll be starting their marriage like this.

The reason I posted this is because a while ago there was a lot of upset about Sesame Street airing shows on HBO a week earlier for kids whose family can afford HBO. And people were so disappointed with Sesame Street for agreeing to that.

But, like, honestly, Sesame Street is struggling and has been for a while. Their agreement deal with HBO was a good thing.  Sesame Street’s funding is dying and I will be really shocked if it survives the next four years or remains publicly available. The people in power don’t want Sesame Street to exist. It teaches kids empathy and kindness and thoughtfulness. It exposes kids to diversity and teaches them openness and caring about others, which is exactly what fascists DON’T want. It’s exactly what CONSERVATIVES don’t want.

Sesame Street is dying and it will be a goddamn miracle if lasts through the next four years.

In case anyone is curious, PBS has always taken donations. The federal government has always shortchanged them horrifically, and various shows have had to be saved in the past. Here’s a lineup of press releases from them that display the diversity of their underfunded original programming (because it’s basically all underfunded). There have been threats to Sesame Street before; we can overcome this. Part of that is making sure local partner stations remain in the black.

However, the financial situation may not be as dire as it looks from this one example. Yes, some parts of the franchise, like the tours, may close. Financial statements for Sesame Workshop indicate it will probably continue to operate, even with more limited government funding, because it gets a minority of its funding from the government now. However, it may indeed have to cut more jobs and some aspects of programming; there’s no guarantee that won’t happen even if it gets a larger portion of its funding from its parent non-profit. Here’s an article from Slate about the PBS financial situation in 2012, with historical accounts of previous tough times. Here’s the New York Times take on the same issue, with the key note that loss in state funding for local stations is a large (and largely ignored) issue.

Financial statements for 2016 for PBS are not yet available, but several previous years’ financial statements are. It would take an accountant to read those statements properly, but the for-profit subsidiaries of PBS were paying 200+K and 300+K in corporate taxes respectively. That indicates they were probably turning a small profit in those years. However, I’m not sure such profits could cover Sesame Workshop’s potential losses.

Want to make a difference? Make a donation to your local PBS station or send a postcard to your Reps/Senators in Washington telling them you want funding for PBS left untouched. Or both! Both is good.