After four years of co-ownership, Nickelodeon Wednesday purchased Sesame
Workshop's 50 percent interest in the pre-school/tween-targeted Noggin digital
cable network.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sesame Workshop will continue to
produce new programming for Noggin, but it has the ability to pull its signature
children's series Sesame Street from the service in two years, said
network sources.
Sesame will also continue to produce its new interactive series Play With
Me Sesame for Noggin through 2009.
Noggin's daytime preschool programming block as well as its tween-targeted
block 'The N' will remain commercial-free for the foreseeable future, according
to Nickelodeon, TV Land and TNN president Herb Scannell, who will oversee the
service.
Noggin general Manager Tom Ascheim will report to Scannell.
Scannell doesn't expect to make any major changes to the network, which also
airs Nickelodeon pre-school series such as Blues Clues.
Currently in more than 25 million households, the network is part of MTV
Networks' digital suite.
