Every time there’s talk of cutting PBS spending, Democrats bring out Big Bird and Elmo and claim that Republicans want to kill them.
Right on cue, Rep. Robert Garcia put on a show, brought out a picture of Elmo and claimed that “Elon Musk and Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to defund Sesame Street and dismantle PBS and NPR.”
Fact check. Sesame Workshop reported $559 million in assets and $187 million in revenues in 2023. It had $271 million in revenues in 2022.
The organization is coming off a 5-year-deal with HBO Max where it was making $30 million or so off its old episodes, and it’s now looking for a new partner, destroying the myth that we need to fund the rest of PBS’s nonsense to save Elmo and Big Bird.
Sesame Street Workshop is in the red, but it’s not because there isn’t plenty of money already coming in.
The New York Times ran a sob story about it titled ‘Why Does Big Bird Look So Sad?’ The organization cut 20% of its staff and claims it has a $40 million deficit. Why? The Times didn’t care to dig so deep.
But CEO Stephen Youngwood was making over $1 million a year, President Sherrie Rollins Westin earns $864,748 a year and the combined C-suite salaries amounted to over $6 million.
If they really want to save Elmo, maybe they can take a pay cut?
