Sesame Street is coming to Netflix but PBS will thankfully still offer it for free

If you’ve got a toddler at home, chances are Sesame Street is already part of your daily routine. Whether it’s Elmo giggling or Cookie Monster teaching patience through snack-based wisdom, the show has long been a lifeline for tired parents and an educational joyride for kids. So the news that Sesame Street is coming to Netflix later this year should sound like a win -- and it mostly is.

Netflix will be home to Season 56 of the show, complete with a refreshed format and plenty of returning fan favorites. Kids can look forward to new segments like Cookie Monster’s Cookie Cart and Abby’s magical fairy garden, all wrapped up in a new 11-minute story-driven episode structure. It’s a smart move that might make the show even more engaging for younger viewers with shorter attention spans.

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But here’s where it gets a bit murky. While the announcement mentions that 90 hours of previous episodes will be made available, it still isn’t clear exactly which seasons or episodes that includes. As a parent, I’d love to see the entire Sesame Street archive in one place -- going back decades. Right now, that’s just not the case. Some episodes are scattered across different platforms, and unless you’re digging through PBS apps or older DVDs, finding specific favorites can feel like a scavenger hunt. Netflix is in a position to solve this problem, and I hope it does.

Thankfully, Sesame Street isn’t being pulled away from its longtime home on public television. A separate multi-year deal with PBS ensures that new episodes will debut on PBS stations and across PBS KIDS platforms the same day they hit Netflix. So families who rely on free public programming won’t miss out. The partnership is backed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and keeps the show commercial-free and widely accessible.

PBS executives are celebrating the deal as a way to keep early childhood education strong, and local stations across the country will continue using Sesame Street in community outreach and educational events. Meanwhile, Netflix adds another big name to its growing list of family content, which now represents about 15 percent of its total viewership. The company also gets rights to develop video games based on both Sesame Street and Mecha Builders.

In a perfect world, all of Sesame Street would live in one easy-to-navigate streaming home. But for now, at least parents have more options -- whether you’re tuning in through PBS or streaming on Netflix. Either way, it looks to be a win for kids.