I think it’s safe to say that Sesame Street has been a part of most of our lives. For almost 50 years, and for 45 seasons, the classic Jim Henson program has aired on PBS with the goal of educating children from the television, and it’s succeeded. Since before many of our parents were born, Sesame Street was there for entertainment, education, and enrichment. If a busy parent had to sit their children down in front of the TV for an hour or two, Sesame Street made sure that wasn’t time lost — it taught these children to count, to talk, to read, and to write. If a child didn’t have the opportunity to be read to by their parents, if something outside of their control made it difficult to learn at an early age, Sesame Street was there to try and fill in those gaps. That’s what made Sesame Street so special, it was for everyone — privileged or unprivileged, if you had basic cable you could watch Sesame Street.

After so many seasons, that’s about to change. HBO has struck a deal with Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit company behind Sesame Street, and for the next 5 years, episodes of the program will air on HBO nine months before PBS. So, a show that’s always been available to everyone, a show that’s been a part of growing up for more than two generations, a show for everyone, will be moving primarily to a premium network. This is bad.

It’s understandable why Sesame Workshop made the decision that they did: For years they’ve been pitifully underfunded. Taking this deal with HBO was probably the only way to keep the show of high quality, and it’s not like the Workshop is doing nothing with the money; they plan on producing a new educational children’s program, updating their sets, and nearly doubling the episodes of Sesame Street produced a year. Compared to what meager resources they had at PBS, they’ll now have more than they could have imagined — so for the quality of the show, this might be a good thing.

That’s the issue though, Sesame Street isn’t about quality, and it never was. It’s a show for toddlers, to be frank, they won’t notice or care about the difference. Even then, I don’t blame the showrunners for moving networks in the situation they’re in, and I don’t blame HBO for picking it up. What were they supposed to do? Give them a massive check and ask for nothing in return? They’re a business, it’s the way things are. Sesame Street isn’t struggling at the hands of any sort of malice, the show just isn’t as popular as it once was, and for a show funded almost entirely on product sales and donations, popularity is important.

More than anything, this news just makes me feel sad, because I don’t know what anyone could have done about it. By moving to HBO, it feels like Sesame Street is being treated like a status symbol. This show, which was always about providing education to those who may not have access to it, is now being actively taken from those who needed it, and there’s nothing anyone could do about it. I guess the government could have stepped in — Sesame Street was more than deserving of their funding, but I can’t really blame the government for not giving them the funds. In the end, I can’t feel much one way or another except bad. This isn’t something that should have to happen.