Sesame Street Gentrified
Authors:   , Abrams Jordan B. , Selinger Janice , Tedesco Albert S. 
Published: July 2021

The intent of this thesis is to consider the future of public television by looking at its past and present . While doing a literature review of the history of public media, the idea of incorporating the audiences feelings and analyzing the cultural trends taking place due to economics, technology, current events, and collective value shifts begun taking precedence in the research as it became clear that the future of public media is dependent on the audience's ideals. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the abolishment of federal funding was a major topic. The imminent threat posed to public media inspired this research, as the arguments for reallocating funds away from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting did not seem in line with what the American People wanted - those people that, in theory, own the airwaves. In 2009, the television industry went through its biggest change with the Digital TV Transition, leaving Public Television especially at a crossroads, not having the budgets that stations using advertising normally have. In 2016, after years of pondering the research and seeing numerous technological innovations changing the way people live their day to day lives, Sesame Street, the longest-running and most studied and praised program for children, struck a deal with premium network Home Box Office (HBO). Also, in 2016, the spectrum reallocation auctions started. This thesis is a look at Public Media's past and a study of public media today. Using the Sesame Street and HBO deal as the case study example of a cultural shift in public media trends, this thesis is an attempt to present information about the present moment of society today as it pertains to public television by citing former trends and current events (i.e. the 2016 presidential election and immediate aftermath). The original research in this paper involves a survey study and the data presented is a collection of demographic trends and corresponding societal values. During the final research and data collection period of this thesis, Donald J. Trump was elected and took the office of the 45th presidency of the United States of America following a hacked and scandal-ridden race for which President Obama ejected 35 Russian intelligence operatives and imposed sanctions on Russia's two largest intelligence agencies, Uber's first shipment of self-driving cars were en route to Arizona for testing, and a first of its kind grocery store operating without any cashiers opened to Amazon employees to test and collect data for a new consumer shopping experience requiring no human interaction. Scientists created a part-human, part-pig embryo, marijuana was legalized in California, Sioux protesters, protecting their land from oil companies and being abused in the treacherous winter cold by their opponents, successfully protected their land, and record number of pardons were issued by President Obama in an effort to de-flood the jails of non-violent criminals, including commuting Chelsea Manning's sentence. President Trump signed the Dakota Access order, ignoring the Sioux protesters achievements and put a ban on seven [predominantly Muslim] countries and 218 million people from entering the states. He has proposed eliminating some funds from nearly every government department, which may include the abolishment of federal funding to public media via CPB. The findings of the research in this paper echo to the author similar events taking place in our world, specifically the value we as a people put on things, and how those values have shifted. What we have right now is ultimately what's important to us. This paper may be used in further research on Sesame Street and its new episodes and how they resonate with people. Will Sesame Street continue to be as important to children and education as it always has been? Will HBO's numbers improve? What does the future of public media look like? Have people's values shifted since contributing data to this research? How will a new administration further influence change? Will the new administration privatize public broadcasting, abolishing federal funding appropriations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)? This thesis may also be a benchmark for where we are at currently with technology, or simply to gain an understanding of the history of public broadcasting and the present state of the industry.